Valencian Institute of Modern Art Shows Photographs by Bernie DeChant: Brazil and Beyond
January 16, 2011 by All Art News
Filed under Photography
VALENCIA.- Organized into three bodies of work, the exhibition explores deep contrasts and aesthetic similarities in architecture, abstract and human form from DeChant’s travels to Brazil, China, Morocco, Japan and the United States. He inspires us to look closer, to become connected with place, beauty and one another. Inspiration, like happiness, is contagious. These leaders knew this as they envisioned entire cities of inspiration. But the utopian dreams find rude awakenings in the reality of day-to-day existence. DeChant captures both the dream and the reality, infecting us with his muse via a cinematic journey of life. The catalog of the exhibition reproduces the works exhibited and published a text of Andy Patrick.
- US photographer Bernie DeChant poses next to his artwork ‘Units’, an image taken in Brasilia on 2006, during the opening of the exhibition ‘Brazil and Beyond’ at Valencian Institute of Modern Art in Valencia, eastern Spain, 13 January 2011. EPA/KAI FORSTERLING.
Bernie DeChant (Racine, Wisconsin, 1972) is a photographer and filmmaker who lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. He studied fine arts and graphic design at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In 1955, he cofounded Adjacency, a design company web pages, where he was artistic director of projects awarded as the first Adobe.com and Apple online store. His design work was awarded the recognition of Graphis, Print, Clio Awards, One Club. Bernie DeChant began to explore photography at the beginning of 2000, and finally, after a trip to Brazil, left his career as a designer to devote full time to photography.
The world’s cities, their shapes, colors and rhythms are the source of inspiration for photos of Bernie DeChant. Architecture of the city attracts and encourages the American photographer regardless of the continent and the country they belong, and establishes similarities between the elements that link them. Thus, through its vision as a foreign photographer, reflects the futuristic promise represented Brazil in 1940, and Tokyo colorful, modern, cosmopolitan and universal, as well as the ancient China or the exotic Morocco. His photographs have been exhibited in Brussels and in Brazil at the Museu Oscar Niemeyer Curitiba.
