One of Florin Ghenade’s constant sources of inspiration is Giordano Bruno and the way he not only perceived and defined light, but also its function – that of allowing the eye to see. Giordano Bruno understood light as more than just a source given by the sun in order to light up the world, and as a “light that is invisible in itself, spread throughout the universe and planted everywhere, thus allowing us to see absent, invisible things”.

Continuing the analogy with Caravaggio, who used light to show an instance, an experience in a given moment, Florin Ghenade illuminates these trees for 16 minutes, revealing a “narrative” that is over 600 years old.

“Photographs aren’t good at telling stories. Stories require a beginning, middle and end. They require the progression of time. Photographs stop time. […] So what are photographs good at? While they can’t tell stories, they are brilliant at suggesting stories,” said Alec Soth. And Florin Ghenade emphasizes this idea in his project: “There exists a context, there exists information about these trees. They can be viewed from an anthropological ecological, historical and architectural perspective. They can be viewed from the perspective of the legends and stories which drew me to them, but first of all they have to be viewed.”

Night cloaks the context we often know only too well in a veil of darkness, allowing us to look straight ahead at these trees

“Memory, much more than aesthetics, has been the dominant narrative thread in the history of photography as we know it,” said the artist Joan Fontcuberta. And yet, the large-scale production of photography today means that photography no longer serves memory, but the moment, the “now”. Photography is becoming more a word and less suggestive of a story, but Florin Ghenade’s photographs do just that: they take us back to memory and time. The role of photography, of light and darkness in this project is not to show, but to teach us how to look. For it is not ancient trees or film photography that is under threat today, but the act of viewing itself.

Curator: Alexandra Manole