Hotel Mediodía

Although I am not normally a huge fan of photography exhibitions, this fall's solo show of the Spanish photographer Javier Campano managed to elicit some emotion from a typically uninterested me.

There may be good logical reasons for that (like, his subject, for one, is almost the same as that of this site - i.e. cities), but I prefer to think that it's the artform that moved me. The artform and the shockingly beautiful female face from a magazine page in one of his Madrid photos that suddenly reminded me of someone I knew in my life. Well, anyway - I'm probably better off sparing you the emotional fluff and sticking to hard, cold facts.

Javier Solano was born in Madrid in 1950 and started the career of a professional photographer in 1975. The photographs displayed in "Hotel Mediodia" all fall within the same general theme: cities. He traveled through about two dozen cities taking pictures of people, buildings, storefronts, and random objects that all magically create a certain impression of the place (and the time). The exhibit spans about 25 years and almost as many cities. Madrid, Buenos Aires, Lisbon, New York, Barcelona and Tanger (Morocco) seem to be the most popular subjects.

One image that completely captivated me was a Madrid photo with a beautiful face from a magazine page. Wait, I already told you this...

"Hotel Mediodía" is on display @ the Reina Sofia Museum (Santa Isabel 52, Madrid) until October 4th. To visit the exhibition, take the well-hidden internal elevator to the 3rd floor (the two main glass elevators only stop on the 1st, 2nd and 4th).

Posted by Slavito in Madrid » Attractions + Attractions on 19/Sep/2004