Martin Pover CARCERI / PRISONS

The title comes from Piranesi's series of etchings of 1750 which depict fantastical prisons and explore the psychological dynamics of social control and perspective.

The project consists of photographs of empty cages; locations that allude to stage sets -empty arenas that are full of suspense. The abandoned spaces anticipate action and drama, but are imbued with an inescapable finality. The arresting geometry of the zoo architecture governs the choice of view-point, and a faux-reality of 'the wild' is exposed. Far from offering a sublime experience, the contemporary zoo is revealed as tableaux and artifice.

M. Pover

In Carceri (literally, ‘prisons'), an ongoing series of pictures from Europe, America and China, Martin Pover investigates the space of the contemporary zoo. Although purporting to offer insights into nature, zoos isolate species from one another, disrupting any normal interaction between different groups of animals, reptiles, fish and birds. Animals are caged, or confined in glasshouses or pits - incarcerated, disenfranchised, and disempowered.

Liz Wells

Martin Pover, Carceri / Prisons
Exhibition open: 06.05. 2010-29.08.2010
Tue-Sun: 12pm.-6 pm.
Camelot Gallery & Imago Mundi Foundation
address: sw. Tomasza 17, Krakow, Poland

ENTERENCE FREE