About | snoek photography

Can the art of visual documentation through photography be art, is the qualifier as art relevant?

My work is an attempt to frame the world in images=photographs. I want to document what still is there before it disappears in time, remember before it is forgotten, in a sense a kind of chronicler. I do not consider myself an artist, I just use the camera. I take pictures. I said my ‘work’, but I do not work as a photographer, rather the camera is with me [mostly] wherever I go. If I state above, I attempt to frame the world in images that is correct, but this process is by default incomplete, since the world clearly is not only what can be captured with an image. So I do only operate with a subset of what Wittgenstein defines as ‘the world is everything that is’, reiterating Hegel's statement "The truth is the whole". Is therefore my optical view of the world narrow-mindedly wrong? Possible, maybe not, but in a technical/optical sense it only represents one aspect, namely the light spectrum between 390nm and 700nm wavelength. My approach would represent a classical filter problem, if only physics/optics would play a part.

Actually, while taking pictures something completely different happens and the above mentioned relevant parameters only play a technical and hence subordinate role.

The camera allows me to take ‘snapshots’, i.e. fixation of processes, which were ongoing, which were generated spontaneously, which actually happen at the very moment but which are never staged. These images have to do the talking, not all have the power and sadly remain ‘flat’, some however convey the narrative and the viewer can experience the situation. There is a very narrow ridge to walk, left and right mark boring nothingness.

And I would also like to point out: the world is out there, at your feet, in front of your eyes, now, just look and see! He who does not want, will not see, will easily regress to a ‘one dimensional’ man, a term H. Marcuse coined, albeit in a slighter different context. The intrinsic beauty of things/moments/events is hidden from many, only an open mind and curiosity will allow you to actually see.

So let me come back to my initial statement: if I try to frame the world then it above all includes the boundary conditions, the story, the narrative. The ‘good’ image exists and serves to facilitate an access into this ‘other reality’, the narrative behind the 2-d plane of the photo. Sometimes one succeeds.

Since the early nineteen sixties I began documenting my world on grainy b&w film, [Kodak Tri-X]. I recorded people, their activities, events and sites/views of interest in Belgium, Bolivia, Canada, Greece, Germany, Italy, Indonesia, Ireland, Mali, Morocco, Peru and Spain.

[text from a submission in 2020 for a photo-book exhibition]

From 2004 on photography became a more important part of my life and I started showing my work in galleries and self-published books [see Books]. Below a selection of international exhibitions :

2004 – “Feldzeichen” solo exhibition Kulturzentrum Sinnsteden, Koeln/Germany

2004 – “The Art of Destruction” show with W. Dengel Galerie Usine, Brussels/Belgium

2004 – “Best of 5” group show Galerie Usine, Brussels/Belgium

2006 – “The others in Ireland” group show Belltable Arts Centre, Limerick/Ireland

2006 – “Deconstruction” solo show, Palazzina delle Arti, La Spezia, Italy

2008 – “Portraits of the Artist as an old Man” solo show, Wexford Arts Centre, Ireland

2008 – “Mid-Land”group show Gallery of Photography, Dublin/Ireland

2009 – “Deconstruction II” solo show, Posa&Posa Gallery, La Spezia/Italy

2017 – “Where we Live” group show, Kamera ∞, Wexford/Ireland