There has been a much-needed turn away from the constraints of documentary photography over the past couple of years in favor of something less direct and more lyrical. I can think of several fantastic artists working away from the documentary with a tendency toward erasing its constrictive need for relational dialog. Federico Clavarino, Alexander Binder, Benedetta Casagrande, Mattia Parodi & Piergiorgio Sorgetti, Dylan Hauthor, Pia Guilmoth, Tereza Zelenkova, Vittorio Motarotti, Maja Daniels, and Elena Helfrecht are all artists, amongst others, who are pulling away from the documentary notion toward a magical realism that suggests narrative at its heart but seeks to distance itself from direct suggestion. Instead, the quest for magical realism embraces themes of phenomena, ritual, magic, optical obfuscation, and mythology to explore more complex associations with the present. It is an alternative to realism, presents states of alterity, and is indebted to a quest for transcendence in the age of capitalism. It is not easily defined, lacks cohesive strategies, and is best left as a single pursuit despite the umbrella of aesthetic choices that many artists evoke under its terms.
One could argue that its pursuit in 2024 is a direct refutation of capitalism and its intentions to quantify and commercialize everything from air to thought. Phenomena are complicated to bring to market. Mythology is elusive, and indirect aesthetic choices with flexible terms of meaning are, in the age of rampant direction of subjectivity, a thing best avoided under capitalism’s duress of the quantifiable. Concerning this last sentiment, magical realism prospers as an alternative to the shrinking world of economics, the shrinking world of open possibility, and the monocultural tendencies that capitalism favors. If it can be categorized, it can be marketed. Magical realism is a snub to that intention. It is even hard to write about convincingly because of it. So, where to start with photography?
With Jm Ramirez-Suassi’s new book Malparaíso, expertly published by Setanta Books, there is a continuation of the photographic style found in his previous books, One-Eyed Ulysses and Fordlandia 9. The difference between this new volume and the last volume in Fordlandia 9 is less about the author’s style of imagery but that there is minimal reference to what the topic might be undergirding it all, and this is the best part. With some allusion to noted Chilean photographer Sergio Larrain starting the book as a quote, one can assume there is a link to that artist’s seminal book Valparaiso, a tome also endeared to South American notions of poetry and magical realism but produced decades before Ramirez-Susassi’s new book.
In connecting his pictures to Larrain, we are entering into what can only be ascribed to as a terrain vague, a state of picture-making in which nothing is absolute, and the pictures and their flow within the book and with one another are less about outcomes than they are about sculpting and crafting a psychological state or terrain from which the reader can draw more about the artist than any particular topic. When I suggest that we can draw from Ramirez-Suassi, it is an inelegant way to indicate that what we are seeing is an inner subjectivity from the artist who shares, so long as it is not absolute, a view of the world that is inward, but in so, does not condition the response to being pretentious or elusive. There is a base honesty to work like this, which says, “This is what I saw,” and leaves the conversation open and unwavering in its conviction to distribute emotion of meaning. Those are two different pursuits, though they are easily forgotten in the production and discussion of contemporary art photography. It seems pretty desperate to tell the viewer how to understand the work.
Throughout Ramirez-Suassi’s landscapes, one feels the desert most. Though these images were shot over multiple locations, there is something of an idea of South America and perhaps the Atacama Desert, a place I have longed to visit. The arid land, crisp sand, and trains plowing through dust reminiscent of a lost scene from an early to mid-period Werner Herzog film sets the stage. I feel correctly attired in a white suit with small steam-punk glasses resting across the bridge of my nose, poking my head out of the train’s window as soot from the engine, propelled by the burning of Atacama desert mummies, reaches the one depot in 1000s of miles where my black veiled consort is set to pick me up at high noon, my leathery lips cracking at the smile tearing through the corner of my jagged pus-ridden mouth.
What has been proven by this book is that Ramirez-Suassi is an exceptional image-maker, and what’s more, is that he is an exceptional book-maker. The sequencing and edit are without flaw. The artist is also taking new chances with his work, which I applaud. Though there has always been an infatuation with uncanny landscapes and peculiar surreal still life, in Malparaíso, there is more of an emphasis on the latter, which is refreshing. Here is where I am reminded of Pia Guilmoth and Elena Helfrecht the most.
In summary, this is one of the finest books of the year, which, frankly, is refreshing to see coming from Setanta, who makes decent books. Still, my criticism is that it is slightly rare when they make a book where the high exceptionalism of the pictures matches the integrity of the overall project. This is not a slight. Far from it, it is encouraging for Setanta to take more chances from image-makers like Ramirez-Suassi, who speak to the community more than a brief-moment social media star. Malparaíso will last on shelves for decades. This is a book that will, like previous Ramirez-Suassi books, remain coveted—well done to both parties. Do not miss out on this book—Highest Recommendation.
JM Ramirez-Suassi
Malparaíso
Setanta Books