Alejandro Chaskielberg: High Tide

Michael Hoppen Contemporary is delighted to announce HIGH TIDE, an exhibition of new work by Argentinean photographer Alejandro Chaskielberg, overall winner of this year's Sony World Photo Awards. 

HIGH TIDE is a series of colour photographs taken in the remote Paraná River Delta, Argentina, where Chaskielberg lived and worked from 2007 - 2010. His subjects are local residents of this isolated community who rely on the river for food, work, travel and communication with the wider world. His portraits are ethereal, dreamlike images that convey the everyday life of those photographed - lumberjacks shifting heavy timber, an aged hunter sitting by an open fire in contemplation, lovers walking under the stars.

Working at night under a full moon, Chaskielberg documents the relationship between the inhabitants of the delta and their environment in startling technicolour using techniques that push the boundaries of the medium to transform our natural perception of light, colour and space, whilst still referencing the aesthetic of nineteenth century photographic portraiture. 

Chaskielberg requires his subjects to pose still for up to 10 minutes in order to distinguish the image from the thick darkness, relying on the natural light from the moon and supplementing this with a variety of artificial lighting tools - torches, flashes and lanterns, creating imaginary scenarios with real people and situations. 

This will be the first solo exhibition by the artist in Europe. We will be celebrating his success at the Sony World Photo Awards as well as the release of La Creciente, a monograph of Chaskielberg's photographs newly published by Nazraeli Press.