Here’s a background to my exhibition that will open at Easter 2016, Friday the 25th of March  – “Abstract Real”.

Google “abstract art” and you get this definition by Rudolph Arnheim:

“Abstract art uses a visual language of shape, form, colour and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world.”

It’s often called nonfigurative and “Abstraction indicates a departure from reality in depiction of imagery in art. This departure from accurate representation can be slight, partial, or complete. Abstraction exists along a continuum.”

Further down this excellent Wikipedia entry you read that “Much of the art of earlier cultures – signs and marks on pottery, textiles, and inscriptions and paintings on rock – were simple, geometric and linear forms which might have had a symbolic or decorative purpose.

It is at this level of visual meaning that abstract art communicates. One can enjoy the beauty of Chinese calligraphy or Islamic calligraphy without being able to read it.”

Untitled So Far # 1 © Jan Oberg 2016

Exactly – that’s what I wanted to say too – abstract is a continuum away from re-presentation of the world; it’s about beauty and decoration with no message – except perhaps beauty. It is nothing new and it can depict a reality – but a reality that we don’t “read” concretely and in a broader sense.

So, what about abstraction and photography? Continue reading →