Albarrán Cabrera is a photo art duo based in Barcelona, Spain. Their artistic practice stems from multiple cultural references in literature, painting, film, science, and philosophy, bringing together both occidental and oriental perspectives of seeing and understanding the world around us.
‘The Mouth of Krishna’ is Albarrán Cabrera’s first solo exhibition in Portugal. The artworks selected for this exhibition present a subtle, and yet striking, range of visual poetics that transport viewers to a universe of enchanting places and timeless moments.
The title of the exhibition, and of the series presented in it, was extracted from a traditional tale of Hindu culture in which young Krishna, the supreme god of protection, compassion, and love, gets his mouth examined by his mother, only to reveal in it the complete endless universe. All the stars and planets; all the lands and seas; all ideas and all emotions; all pity and all hope, along with the ultimate realisation that in any part of the universe there is a whole universe.
In this sense, the exhibition delves into different perceptions of reality and belonging, ultimately provoking the notions of dreams and memory and their ability to shape who we are and our understanding of own experience.
As viewers, we often relate images to our own personal pathways, dreams, and reminiscences. From the artists’ perception, “we are our memories. They define what we are and help us to understand our reality.”
In this continuous challenge to get to know our internal self, we examine the world through a physical window, and, at the same time, we aim to look within ourselves, attempting to separate our thoughts from our self.
As we approach the artists photography included in ‘The Mouth of Krishna’, we observe a parallel and captivating tension between the mysterious and unknown outside world and the similarly mysterious internal world.
On that note, Albarrán Cabrera pose an affectionate reference to Álvaro de Campos’ (Fernando Pessoa’s heteronym) eternal poem “Tabacaria”, in the excerpt “I am nothing. / I will always be nothing. / I can’t even wish to be something. / Aside from that, I’ve got all the world’s dreams within me.”
Albarrán Cabrera’s photographs have been exhibited in galleries and photo fairs in Spain, Japan, Switzerland, USA, Belgium, The Netherlands, France, Germany, Lebanon, and Italy. Private collections and institutions that house their photographs include Hermès, Goetz Collection, The German Bundestag’s Art Collection, Banco de Santander and De Nederlandsche Bank among others. They have also produced photographic prints for institutions such as Fundació La Pedrera, Barcelona; Fundació Toni Catany, Mallorca; Reina Sofía Museum, Madrid; FotoColectania, Barcelona; the Photographic Archive, Barcelona. They have collaborated with publishers such as Adelphi Edizioni, Mondadori Libri, Penguin Random House, Diogenes Verlag, RM Verlag and Ediciones Atalanta and companies/institutions such as La Monnaie De Munt, Belgium’s federal opera house.
- Exhibition ‘The Mouth of Krishna’, Albarrán Cabrera, In The Pink, Gallery for Fine Photo Art opens on September 8, 2023
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