Significant Colour

Two images from Xiomaro’s New York City street photography collection have been selected by PH21 Gallery in Budapest, Hungary.  The prints, which will be on public display for the first time, can be seen from June 29 to July 23, 2024 at the gallery’s Significant Colour international group exhibition.  As noted by the gallery, “the competition was very stiff” and they “selected more than one photograph from some of the artists.”

From the curators Zsolt Bátori, PhD (Director) and Borbála Jász, PhD (Vice-Director):

There are two kinds of photographs with respect to the significance of their use of colours.  On the one hand, ever since colour film technology became widely available, colour has become the default in most photographic practices.  That is, some photographs are in colour not because their colours bear some special significance (compared, for instance, to their possible black and white counterparts) but simply because the available film or digital technology has long made colour the common method of capturing photographic images.  We may think of these photographs as colour by default.

On the other hand, colours are often central to the meaning of photographs for their emphatic, symbolic, psychological, social, compositional, etc. significance.  These photographs would not work in black and white the same way, or they would not work at all.  That they are in colour is not merely a technological given; rather, it is an integral, formative, and significant aspect of their photographic meaning.  We may think of these photographs as colour by significance.

The theme of the exhibiton is thus broadly construed, as the significance of colours is independent of generic or stylistic constraints.

All photographs are available for exhibition and purchase. Contact Xiomaro