At its origins, photography went by another name: heliography, “writing with light.” Chemists, astronomers, and physicists studied this celestial substance, capable of inscribing reality onto a light-sensitive surface. How could one not perceive in it a form of alchemy and magic? Even today, this chemical feat continues to astonish us.
Since 1843, flowers have stood out as a recurring motif in the medium’s history. Large-format cameras were carried up to the summits to capture mountain ranges on large negatives with a definition that contemporary technologies have never surpassed. In 1861, trichromy revealed color through additive synthesis, and suddenly the world appeared as we see it. In the darkness of darkrooms, an astronomer developed the platinum–palladium process: a noble material that gives prints velvety blacks, a depth of shadow that time cannot alter.
The artists brought together in the exhibition MAGIA LUCIS (Magic of Light) carry this legacy forward. Some reactivate historic processes, collaborate with scientists, and document ways of life on the margins or forms of artisanal know-how that embody a different temporality, in defiance of hypermodernity. Others create staged scenes in which nature crystallizes the human being’s share of shadow and light.