TIME PRESENT TIME PAST Photo Projects by SEBASTIAN CORTÉS
Is it a room or a chamber? Is it contained or does it reach out to infinity? Is it suspended in time or is it aging as we speak? Who are these dead men and women whose frames hang within the image? Do they converse with each other when the light has gone; when the living are asleep, or when they’ve retired to elsewhere worlds across the seas, abandoning their precious interiors to be playthings of the elements?
Sebastian Cortés’ photographs are saturated with such ever-questioning detail. Clues abound. But what is the great mystery they serve to address? Within this astute body of work, objects are testaments and the sitters, when framed, are firmly in attendance. Both categories of inhabitants allude to that which is present and that which has past, transforming Cortés’ photographs into documents that will determine the future of the multiple mis-en-scenes.
Cortés reinvents remains. His contemporary lens preys on remaindered detail, fragments, traces of what were once prized acquisitions, aesthetic luxuries. In doing so, he references their metonymic relation to Time Past. Their resilience against erosion, decay, and their survival in the face of neglect and abandonment constitutes the poetry of the present. Cortés alludes to the momentary present; that which was in existence, however prolonged or accidental that existence may have been.
About SEBASTIAN CORTÉS
Sebastian Cortés, born in New York. took up photography while at New York University film school where he studied and collaborated with many of the best names in the industry, shooting several short films. In 1985 moved to Milan, Italy and started shooting fashion, travel and lifestyle photography assignments for many international magazines and commercial clients, including: American Express, Condè Nast, Ermenegildo Zegna, Publicis Group and many others.
From the beginning, Sebastian’s career included a commitment to fine art photography, developing a very personal analysis of the use of the camera as an instrument for recording – the layering of time and the sense of place – influenced by the American school: Walker Evans, Stephen Shore, William Eggleston and contemporaries like Robert Polidori and Alec Soth. His fascination with history and passion for heritage was set in motion at a young age, during his many stays in Venice, Italy at the palazzo of his grandfather.
In 1996 Sebastian produced, “Luoghi Poetici”, published by Loggia de Lanzi, intimate, atmospheric portraits of the major Italian poets in their homes, the key to discovering each poet is the place in both a literary and metaphorical sense – that space in which the poet recognises himself. The book and the exhibition drew great critical acclaim and travelled to major Italian cities.
In 2004 Sebastian moved together with his family to India, where his award-winning fine art, travel, and lifestyle photography is greatly admired. Garnering recognition from noted artists, intellectuals and press, Cortés developed several book projects, “Pondicherry”, published by Roli Books, “Sidhpur”, published by Tasveer, further extending his very personal discourse with photography, initiating a productive period of fieldwork within a new cultural context. His most recent project “Symmetria”, developed over a four-year period in collaboration with UNESCO World Heritage, in the Chettiar region of Tamil Nadu, India, explores the fine line between the utopian and the resoundingly real, as well as between architectural and fine-art photography. Cortés lectures, offers workshops and mentoring in photo biennales around the world. His images are exhibited and reviewed widely in Europe and in India. Sebastian currently lives in Venice, Italy and India.
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS AND AWARDS
2022
Sidhpur, Time Present Time Past, Indian Art Fair, New Delhi
Pondicherry, Palazzo Polignac Art Gallery, Venice
2016
Sidhpur, Time Present Time Past, Folly Arts Centre at Amethyst, Chennai
Sidhpur, Time Present Time Past, London Photo Festival
2015
Sidhpur: Time Present Time Past, Harrington Street Arts Centre, Kolkata
Sidhpur: Time Present Time Past, Exhibit 320, New Delhi
Sidhpur: Time Present Time Past, Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Mumbai City Museum, Mumbai
Sidhpur: Time Present Time Past, Goa Photo Biennale, Gitanjali Gallery, Goa
2014
Sidhpur: Time Present Time Past, Tasveer Gallery, Bangalore
Sidhpur: Time Present Time Past, National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad
2014
Pondicherry, Citadines Art Gallery, Auroville
Pondicherry, Photo Shanghai, Shanghai
2013
Pondicherry Tasveer, Amethyst Gallery, Chennai
2012
Pondicherry, Tasveer Gallery, Bangalore
Pondicherry, Tasveer, Alliance Francais, Delhi
Pondicherry, Aurodhan Gallery, Pondicherry
2007
Infinite, Kala Kendra Gallery, Auroville
1996
Luoghi Poetici, Circolo della Stampa, Milano
Luoghi Poetici, Protomoteca, Roma
Luoghi Poetici, Galassia Gutemberg, Napoli
Pondicherry, (architecture), IPA Photography Awards
Sidphur, (culture), IPA Photography Awards
Notturno Veneziano, (architecture) IPA Photography Awards
Javier Marias, (editorial portrait) IPA Photography Awards
SEBASTIAN CORTÉS in conversation with ROSALYN D’MELLO
Rosalyn: Inspirations, influences, and reasons for making these series?
Sebastian: I have always been attracted to cities or towns that have, for some historic, social, or economic reason, fallen off the map. Sidphur and Chettinad exude the same kind of atmosphere that you find in abandoned mining towns in the American west, or cities in southern Italy that once had great commercial importance, then history moved on and left them drifting in the indifference of time. But these two locations have an added element that fascinates me even more and that is the layering of visual, architectural, and symbolic elements that seem to linger in the homes like so many ghosts. The psychological and metaphorical importance of rooms and what they silently describe, holds my attention and I want to draw the viewer into the pathos of discovery. The vibration of the empty rooms and all the surface information speaks to us about a people and their need to express themselves, the exteriorization of the soul life or personal values- the emblematic image of an age, a brief but rich moment of creativity and domesticated poetic fantasy. Sidphur and Chettinad for me stand as a metaphor for many of the questions I ask myself about the process of time and the effects of modernity.
Having been influenced consciously and subconsciously by an Italian mother, who can trace her family history to the early stones of Venice and a father whose last name alludes to a time of great upheaval and historic change, my formal and visual education interwoven a curious pattern, which also rests on some very persistent American experiences and ways of being. It’s inevitable that vagabonds and culturally variegated individuals like me become more sensitive to that notion of impermanence, which I seek to arrest in my photographs. My process of observation, when freed of the ridged and shallow obligations of editorial or commercial discipline, tends towards a “vision of loss”. At the very outset of photography, William H. Fox Talbot noted the camera’s special aptitude for recording “the injuries of time”.
My continuous point of reference and influencing force is the American school of photography, as expressed by Walker Evans, Stephan Shore, William Egglestone and my contemporaries Robert Polidori and Alec Soth- I share and admire their disciplined approach to recording reality. I also like to include a slightly more European and softer chromatic gaze, which finds its best expression in the Italian photographer Luigi Ghirri.
Rosalyn : How ds these series differ from your previous projects in India?
Sebastian: The process I follow is always the same in my projects and I try to remain similarly disciplined. At the same time, what I have learned about India from each project and the deeper fascination, understanding and feeling of kinship, which has developed, helps me to be more susceptible to nuances and subtle details. In the end, every project interjects a different matrix of elements, which seem to arise as I go through the process of recording and searching. Every project is different in content but similar in the questions it posses.
Rosalyn: In previous projects you have been influenced by literature, what were some of the non-photographic influences here?
Sebastian: I think that the influences of literature are always playing a role in any of my projects. Writers as different as Max Sebald, Orhan Pamuk, William Dalrymple, Susan Sontag, T.S Eliot and Pankaj Mishra, to mention just a few, are constantly setting a tone to my process of observation. I spend allot of time reading and finding men and women of my generation and from the past, who share my state of mind and help me to objectively entertain a vision of the world. But I’m also easily moved by simple curiosity and the fatalistic sense of opportunity, which is often just a working through of my personal process and path.
Rosalyn: You seem intrigued by aspects of life that are often overlooked, the mundane, ordinary …domestic routines – why are these recurring themes in your work and please explain what you attempt to convey through your imagery?
Sebastian: The obvious, the domestic, the routine are elements that I like to explore in the context of exceptional conditions. More clearly, the psychological and metaphorical importance of rooms and what they silently describe, holds my attention and I want to draw the viewer in to the pathos of discovery. The vibration of the empty rooms and all the surface information speaks to us about a people and their need to express themselves, the exteriorization of the soul life or personal values- the emblematic image of an age, a brief but rich moment of creativity- of domesticated poetic fantasy. A house that has been lived is not an inert box, it’s filled with a humanness that I want to capture and evoke. Furthermore, I feel that the house represents a group of organic habits, which serve as metaphors of imagination, waiting to be observed.
Rosalyn: What do these images reveal about you as a photographer if anything?
Sebastian: My process of observation, when freed of the ridged and shallow obligations of editorial or commercial discipline, tends towards a “vision of loss”. At the very outset of photography, William H. Fox Talbot noted the camera’s special aptitude for recording “the injuries of time”. I feel that my images portray my constant need to balance between past and present; to persistently look in both directions as I’m slightly worried about the future and feel more at ease in certain atmospheres and surroundings of the past, that I try to evoke, record, and examine.
Rosalyn: Some of the interesting moments—including challenges, if any—that you would like to share?
Sebastian: My process with my project-fine-art photography always implies a challenge of access and verification. Sidphur, Pondicherry and Chettinad involved a pilgrimage from house to house which was very much akin to the path followed by an investigator who looks for clues, but I was not wanting to verify anything. My search is not to uncover but to record, my clues lay hidden in the two-dimensional result of my efforts, which become objects of a bigger puzzle, that are more universal, more transcendent and speak to each viewer in a different way, as photographs must.
Rosalyn: You describe your photographic process as ‘recording not judging’, where you follow principles of Pure or Straight photography – depicting a scene as realistically and objectively as possible with a conscious attempt to distance yourself from your subject, yet there is a sense that your perception has translated into your work and the images themselves seem quite intimate, did you feel that your presence in this society was an intrusion?
Sebastian: I attempt to remain as disciplined as possible to avoid any nostalgic indulgence or an excessively dry interpretation, but the possibility always remains that my subconscious attachment to certain iconic images surfaces. I had a very formal, Euro[1]pean education and spent my early years roaming around churches and frescoed villas in northern Italy. The early renaissance painter Vittore Carpaccio, his painting “St. Augustine in His Study” is constantly alive in my mind’s eye and particularly influences me; the balance achieved in this painting is a solid reference point for me. I never feel that I’m intruding once a member of that same place has let me into a community or a house.
Rosalyn: Western artists making work about the east and India are often accused of being Orientalist, making things exotic / appropriating the culture, how do you respond to this view?
Sebastian: The concept of Orientalism has many different interpretations and can easily and constantly is associated with most attempts by westerners to observe and artistically depict the eastern part of the world. But I personally feel that Orientalism is a dated label, which was suited for the colonial and post-colonial period when travel and communication was at a slower pace and cultures where more easily identified in their static qualities and exploited. Edward Said’s political, social, and cultural depiction of Orientalism certainly still holds a specific explanation for many of today’s social upheavals and miss-directed attempts of western intervention in eastern affairs. But from a purely artistic point of view, Orientalism in the work that I do would be a miss-applied label. I think contemporary photography has a universal language, which goes beyond such limited cultural stigmas. One thing is certain, but this pertains to all cultures, a foreign eye often sees and interprets the local reality with a totally different vision, which may at times be less encumbered.
Rosalyn: How does India differ from other countries that you have lived / worked in – has the environment influenced your work/ subject / process and how?
Sebastian: India offers an enormous variety of visual and cultural realities. Especially in this transition phase, which sees the forces of modernity encumber on older traditions. India is a vivid tableau of contrasts. I find myself currently in a totally different phase in my photographic career then when I was working in Europe. India has helped me to develop a renewed vision and deeper commitment to my artistic and cultural concerns. My documenting process has also changed; I have grown more attentive to nuances. India has forced me to reflect attentively on each project and the subtle influences that motivate me to undertake a project.
Rosalyn: What should viewers look for when they see these images?
Sebastian: I never really ask anything of the viewer, he or she can only see and understand what they are able and prepared to see. A photograph, like any other object or artistic expression, requires that the viewer be nurtured by their own cultural and emotional background- all explanations or captions are useless. It’s my hope that the viewer connects emotionally and on an unconscious level, which suggests that I would like my images to raise questions.
Rosalyn: What is the relationship between your personal and commercial work, do you see them as separate or are there similarities?
Sebastian: Obviously my mastery of the trade is one and the same, but my process and vision is vastly different when I engage in a personal project. Commercial photography is, by definition, an act guided by some commercial rules and needs, which you must accept and agree to. Personal projects are the direct opposite, your end point is different, the process is different, and the result is different.
Rosalyn: Tell us about your plans for future projects. What are you currently working on?
Sebastian: I have two different projects, which will both challenge me to expand my process. They are both in the conceptual stage and will involve different styles of photography. I want to do an “on the road” project, which will analyze the visual grid of life around a highway in India. My second project will involve the similar process used in the projects already presented.
