Calendario

'Reazione Nera'. Cajal and the nervous impulse of photography

Name: 'Reazione Nera'. Cajal y el impulso nervioso de la fotografía
Start: 2023-02-09T20:00
End: 2023-02-09T21:00
Location: Museo de Arte y Museo de Ciencias

INAUGURATION

Inauguration of the exhibition 'Reazione Nera'. Cajal and the nervous impulse of photography

Ortiz Echagüe Space
Curators: Martí Llorens and Rebecca Muttel

February 9 - April 16

Reazione Nera. Cajal and the nervous impulse of photography opens to the public a fascinating scientific-artistic laboratory. Science and photography go hand in hand to take the visitor beyond the material aspect of photography and show it as a living organism, susceptible of being studied from its "organic" life.

Throughout 2022, many institutions have commemorated the figure of the great Spanish scientist Ramón y Cajal. The Museo Universidad de Navarra, in collaboration with the Museo de Ciencias Universidad de Navarra, has programmed this exhibition that commemorates and thanks him for his exceptional work in the field of art and science, in this case through photography.

THE EXHIBITION

The exhibition is structured on the basis of the Museum's collection of photographs, entering into them through a microscopic vision, showing their "neuronal structures". The intention is to draw attention to the structure of the photographic image, its physical structure, as well as its imaginary and conceptual structure.

The project suggests and draws links between art and science from the phenomenon of vision. It speaks of light, movement and impulses that create the basic structure of what we call "photography".

The exhibition is curated by artists and curators Martí Llorens and Rebecca Mutell, members until its dissolution of AtelieRetaguardia. Heliografía Contemporánea (2007-2012), a Barcelona-based working group dedicated to the study and practice of art through historical photographic procedures.

REAZIONE NERA

At the beginning of the 20th century, the scientist Camilo Golgi was able to distinguish a black dye that made it possible to identify neurons and their interaction: the Reazione nera. This is a crucial scientific process for neuroscience and for the work of Ramón y Cajal, the best user of the "black reaction", since he used it as the basis for his own discoveries.

Golgi himself stated: "I am happy, for I have found a new reaction which demonstrates even to the blind the structure of the interstitial stroma of the cerebral cortex. I let silver nitrate react with pieces of brain hardened in potassium dichromate. I have already obtained magnificent results and hope even to improve them in the future."

This exhibition deals with the Reazione nera applied to photography, to its various processes, not only chemical and developing dyes, which not infrequently also include silver nitrate. Also to those that photography provokes in our visual perception. Ramón y Cajal was passionate about this artistic discipline, he knew the daguerreotype, was fascinated by wet collodion and became one of the pioneers in the use of color photography.

From its conception as an artistic object to its materialization, the processes linked to light and the reaction to its presence evoke suggestive paths of study that attract and seduce us like butterflies and fireflies.

Commissioners:

REBECCA MUTELL

Born in Aranda de Duero in 1980, she holds a PhD in Fine Arts from the University of Barcelona and is the recipient of an extraordinary doctorate award for her thesis Atrapando la luz. Origin and materiality of photography. She is a member of GREDITS, Grup de Recerca en Disseny i Transformació Social, of Bau, Centro Universitario de Diseño, attached to U-Vic, where she works as a professor of photography. She was one of the founding members of AtelieRetaguardia. Contemporary Heliography in Barcelona (2007-2012). Currently, she directs together with Martí Llorens the cultural association Factoría Heliográfica, dedicated to the research and artistic practice of photography. His personal works have been exhibited and published in different institutions and galleries.

MARTÍ LLORENS

Born in Barcelona in 1962, he graduated in Fine Arts specializing in Image from the UB (1987) and holds a master's degree in Theory and History of Architecture from the ETSAB (2016). He has worked as a photographer specializing in the documentation of architectural and engineering projects. His work develops around time and territory, history and memory, reality and the imaginary. Founding member of the association AtelieRetaguardia. Heliografía Contemporánea (2007-2012), dedicated to research and artistic practice through historical photographic procedures, in 2015 he co-directed the restoration project of the Daguerre-Giroux photographic equipment with which in 1839 the first photograph was taken in Spain.

Go to the artist's website