‘Magnificent Obsession’: An Introduction to the Work of Five Photographers

Abstract

This is an exhibition of photography that shatters preconceptions of what a photograph is or should be. The fantasy of a privileged insight that tears the mask away from perceived reality gives way to another reality, that of the mask itself and the reality of fantasy. Photography is generally assumed to be primarily anchored to the visible. The pleasurable paradox, familiar to the cinema, that the photographic image can be organised to express an abstract idea, an argument, the interior world of desire and imagination, seems strange to still photography.

Written as the catalogue text for the exhibition ‘Magnificent Obsession’ held at the ARC Gallery, Toronto, and the Optica Gallery, Montreal, in 1985.