From 24 February to 1 March, the Serrano and Preciados stores in Madrid will house various works of contemporary photography by acclaimed artists such as Candida Höfer, Peter Beard, Weng Fen, Bae Bien-U, Jordi Bernadó, Mabel Palacín and Edward Burkynsky

 

Public and private. Indoor and outdoor. Personal. Even mental. Spaces shape our thoughts, evoke our memories and delineate our connections to others.

Whether it is in the long artistic tradition of landscape art, where we can sense a spiritual element that is rooted in Eastern philosophy and the Romantic movement, or architectural representations –a gender masterly cultivated by the Renaissance creators and 20th century icons such as Giorgio de Chirico or Edward Hopper–, Art has explored our relationships with the spaces we pass through and prompted questions about our role as spectators.

Here, it is the photographic camera which conveys this narrative. With a strong poetic sensibility, Candida Höfer’s unpopulated rooms, Peter Beard’s visual diary of a wild Africa, Weng Fen’s enigmatic images of anonymous individuals facing landscapes, and Bae Bien-U’s captivating natural compositions devise their own discourses and encourage us to reflect on topics such as the impact on resources, cultural heritage and how we perceive and experience our surroundings. Thus, inviting us to virtually jump into their photographs or continue observing them forever.

A Place to Remember - photographic visions of spaces and landscapes brings together a selection of contemporary photographs from the private collection of Mango, which is being exhibited to the public on the occasion of the ARCO contemporary art fair in Madrid. The window display and the interiors of the stores located at Serrano, 60 and Preciados, 10 will house the selection of works, which will appear alongside the brand’s collections for one week, inviting its customers to participate in the brand’s ties with art.

These works and others belonging to the private collection of Mango are normally displayed at the company’s headquarters, where they co-exist with employees, who are able to take inspiration from the creativity of all these artists. And it this very sensation which Mango wishes to transfer to its consumers with this exhibition. The temporary exhibition will run from 24 February to 1 March.

The works

Window Display

Serrano Store

Weng Fen, Staring at the Lake 5

Candida Höfer, Bibliothèque de l’empereur, Château de Fontainebleau

Jordi Bernadó, Stockholm

 Preciados Store

Candida Höfer, San Martino, Napoli II

Peter Beard, 965 Elephants

Interior

Serrano Store

Weng Fen, Staring at the sea 8

Weng Fenn, Staring at the Lake 4

Mabel Palacín, Ensayo s/t

Preciados Store

Peter Beard, Men in Truck

Bae Bien-U, Pine Tree

Candida Höfer, Villa di Poggio a Caiano, Prato I

Candida Höfer, Le Sénat, Paris VIII

Edward Burkynsky, Chromogenic Print

The artists

Weng Fen

A graduate of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, Weng Fen (Hainan, China, 1961) received critical acclaim in the late 90s with a series of enigmatic photographs which, halfway between poetical contemplation and anxiety derived from urban transformation, presented an ambivalent vision of the modern city.

Candida Höfer

Candida Höfer (Eberswalde, Germany, 1944) is known for her her large-format, austere images of empty architectural interiors, especially cultural and institutional spaces such as zoos, libraries and theatres. Her work focuses on the psychological environment of these spaces by acknowledging how public spaces are designed to accommodate and inform the public. The absence of the human figure is one of the character traits of her photographs, thus emphasising the eerie monumentality of the buildings

Peter Beard

Halfway between activism and documentary work, Peter Beard (New York, 1938) offers his personal vision of Africa in collages which combine photography, painting, and drawing with newspaper clippings, his own writings and natural elements (dried leaves, insects, and blood) to powerfully capture a continent succumbing to industrialisation.

Bae Bien-U

Bae Bien-U (Yesou, South Korea, 1950) focuses on staccato organic forms such as trees, pebbles, leaves, and small waterfalls, all of them virtually always captured in stark black and white. His work embodies a traditional, meditative ethos of Korean culture while suggesting a new kind of political landscape where a multiplicity of individual forms co-exist in a peaceful, yet singular mass.

Jordi Bernadó

Jordi Bernadó (Lérida, 1966) depicts an ironic reflection on urban spaces and their demographic transformations (such as overpopulation, depopulation and the reconversion of industrial sites into business districts) with the emphasis on architecture. The underlying mystery in his work is whether images are a reflection or a mere simulation of reality, as it is the artist himself who chooses what to capture in his pictures and the way to do it.

Mabel Palacín

Mabel Palacín (Barcelona, 1965) is a multidisciplinary artist who focuses on the study of images in all their mutations (including cinema, video and digital variants), and explores their connection with the viewer and the way they construct our reality.

Edward Burkynsky

The photographic work of Edward Burtynsky (Ontario, Canada, 1955) focuses on industrial landscapes and their impact on natural spaces. In 1985, he founded Toronto Image Works, a photo laboratory and computer-training centre catering to Toronto's art community.