Ignaz Cassar
Art
Field #9
Field #8
Field #6
Field #2
London based Ignaz Cassar works as a writer and artist. Cassar completed his doctoral research at the University of Leeds in England, in which he explored the phenomenology of photography in relation to the spaces and temporalities of photographic production. More recently, his research has revolved around the dynamics between educational politics, the knowledge economy and art practice. He has lectured in aesthetics at the University of Leeds and Goldsmiths, University of London, and in photographic theory at Nottingham Trent University. His work has been published in journals such as parallax, photographies, Journal of Visual Arts Practice, and Philosophy of Photography. In 2010 he was artist in residence at the Centre International d’Accueil et d’Échanges des Récollets in Paris.
His interest in photography stems from his time at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, where he was tutored by Austrian photographer Margherita Spiluttini. He subsequently received a studentship for postgraduate studies in photography by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Culture.
The exhibited photographs belong to a series of artworks entitled Fields (2006). This series comprises a variety of black and white panoramic shots of the English countryside. Using a large format camera, Cassar addresses the nature of photographic re-presentation and exposes the deceptive potential of photographic technology. By carefully placing the 10 x 8 inch negative over its positive contact print, the image is ‘negated’ and the photographic details, outlines and contours, gently fade into a monochromatic field of darkness. The image, which appears to be black, paradoxically emerges by way of its disappearance. In Fields, the negative and the positive converge, producing a set of singular and intelligent artworks that seem to defy the laws of mechanical reproduction and put into question the photographer’s authorial powers.