img: «Diada castellera», Aniol Resclosa, 1st November 2012, Digital image. CRDI. Fons Ajuntament de Girona.
101 PHOTOGRAPHS among 3 millions
This is a visual resource made from a selection of 101 photographs of the collection of the Centre for Image Research and Diffusion (CRDI, Ajuntament de Girona, one of the founder members of Photoconsortium) that are considered relevant.
All of them are photographs that stand out for a particular aspect: for its visual content, its aesthetics, its historical relevance, its uniqueness or its exceptional nature as a photographic object. Its visualization, in an individualized way and outside of the production context, largely allows the release of meanings because the initial functionality is overcome by the interpretation and reinterpretation of each viewer.
The compilation work is mainly based on a research on the aesthetics of images, starting from the prior knowledge about their authors and the context of creation.
In the creative field, we can mention some authors, such as Valentí Fargnoli, outstanding author of the first decades of the 20th century in Girona region. He knew how to create an identity as a photographer, using a very personal aesthetic. Also, Josep Buil Mayral, a photographer who presents innovative, open-minded and creative works in the 1950s. Josep Buil is also one of the founders of AFYC, a photographic association. Indeed, this association is well represented by other authors like Xavier Puig or Xavier Llompart. Of contemporary age, we find the most outstanding photographers, well known in an international level, like Joan Fontcuberta, Bleda y Rosa or Isabel Muñoz.
In the journalistic field, the figure of Narcís Sans. His reportages from the sixties and seventies respond necessarily to the spirit of the time, that is to say, to the happy story of the events organized in the framework of officiality: inaugurations, visits, celebrations, etc. However, among its enormous production we find unique images that emerge strongly when isolated from their context. The same goes for some of our contemporaries photojournalists such as Manel Lladó, Lluís Cruset, Joaquim Curbet, etc.
The “street photographs” are also present. These are the photographs taken by those amateurs who adopted photography as a complementary medium for their subsistence. The most represented author is Martí Massafont, who captured images of great impact. Photos away from any conventionalism, both technical and formal. However, their images nowadays constitute a powerful visual testimony.
The contribution of the studio portraits is remarkable, due to the wide representation of the Girona galleries in the CRDI collection and the visibility that they are acquiring in all kinds of resources, from publications to street exhibitions.
Finally, the historical photographs, marked mainly by the importance of its contents. This is the case for the images of Joan Martí, who, between 1876 and 1877 worked in the first reportage known from the collodion period.
In short, we can say that the whole sample offers us a broad and illustrated vision of what these 175 years of photography have been in Girona, from the first images of 1842, to the replacement of digital technology in the XXI. The approach to such a wide and diverse set illustrates many aspects of the relationship between the Photography and the city of Girona.
