Exhibition Review by Charlie Yip, 2022

Exhibition:

“Finding the Found - Photo” Exhibition by Marty Miller, curated by Jen Yoohyun Lee, Hong Kong Arts Center's L4 Pao Gallery, 23-25/09/2022.

This exhibition shows the found photos of Hong Kong people that were taken from 1996 to 2022. The artist Marty Miller collected the photos from the memory cards and cameras sole in the flea market in Sham Shui Po. This exhibition takes us to investigate the relationship between technology and the aesthetics of photography against time. Visitors are invited to choose one camera from the selected antique digital cameras to take photos in this exhibition space, travelling along the history of Photographic technology or the production of visual culture.

With this exhibition, the artist is questioning how technological devices tell the connotation of the photograph through the production of the photograph and how technology shapes our aesthetics. As Roland Barthes put it, “Connotation, the imposition of second meaning on the photographic message proper, is realized at the different levels of the production of the photograph”, suggesting that the photographic message is in both the connotation of the visual elements of the image and its time and space that realized in its production. For instance, the matter of choosing photographic subjects, the technological devices for taking photos and presenting photos, and the storage of photos. By having the visitors actively engage in producing photos and allowing them to choose the devices of different years, this exhibition liberates the visitors from the aesthetics of the 00s produced by the digital camera industry, meanwhile, examining the process of the production of this archive with the people for the people.

Photos

Reference:

“Finding the Found - Photo” Exhibition by Marty Miller, curated by Jen Yoohyun Lee, Hong Kong Arts Center's L4 Pao Gallery, 23-25/09/2022.

Quote

“Connotation, the imposition of second meaning on the photographic message proper, is realized at the different levels of the production of the photograph”

Barthes, R.,“Image-Music-Text”, A Barthes Reader, Edited by Sontag, S., NY: Noonday Press, 1988. p.199.