In Focus: Christto & Andrew

2022

By Anna Nigmatulina

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Christto & Andrew have been chasing after time since the beginning of their artistic collaboration. The artistic duo explore the idea of reality, time and its construction – in its infinite manifestations and contradictions – within the photographic frame of their camera lens.

Christto & Andrew

Having lived and worked in Qatar, Christto & Andrew showcase the beauty and richness of this region and all of its people. “We wanted to portray life in the Middle East in a beautiful way, because sometimes, the news about the Middle East in the West is the negative kind. We wanted to show it in a positive light.” Their aesthetic choices, fictional narratives and striking compositions convey this almost obsessive attention to detail, color and design. The color schemes of turquoise blues, light pastels and sandy browns demonstrate unmistakably how their work is inspired by the everyday colors of Qatar, as seen in their iconic image, Mimetic Gestures I. The artwork jump-started the career of Christto & Andrew in 2014 when it was featured on the cover of Foam magazine. In the words of the artists, the portrait of a pearl diver represents the “merging of past and present” in Qatar – the industry of the past and the workforce of the present. In this way, the work is “trying to take something very traditional and to put it in a really contemporary context,” for a deeper contemplation about the repetitive cycles of time.

Such juxtapositions and contradictions dictate the work of the artists. They play with the idea of presenting compositions that challenge the audience to reconsider their perspective of life and conception of time, for instance by merging the grotesque and the beautiful as in the work titled, Hamour. A lifeless fish lies on a background the color of the Arabian Gulf, as though floating on the clear surface of a tranquil aqua blue sea. Brilliant pearls and gemstones pour out of its gut. The symbolisms are numerous and each viewer could find a different message about life and its dis-contents.

In Counter Clock, the artwork questions these notions of milestones and life expectations. Life is represented as a piece of cake, but it is a life that has seen 100 years of candles burning away. It is a milestone that was once rare for humans in the past to reach, but we can all relate to it in our modern outlook of the future. Our collective imagination understands that becoming a centenarian is now a realistic possibility –but on an existential level, not many comprehend what happens once we pass this milestone. What can we expect from the future – a future that is in rapid flux? What happens when the candles burn out? What happens after we eat the cake? What will we do with all this future?

Many of Christto & Andrews works question this future through “retro-futuristic” motifs, as in Hyper Futurism II. The image shows a sleek, white hoverboard accentuated by blue neon lights, supporting a pair of legs, clad in Nike label socks, sandy sandals and the edges of a pristine white traditional thobe, all standing on a patch of brilliantly green artificial grass, on the foreground of a rocky desert. This accidental montage, the artistic potential of which the artists stumbled upon at a Qatari campsite, demonstrates remarkably well how modern life is often a collection of seemingly unrelated elements that only make sense in specific contexts, specific spaces. This work captures a vision of the future, the technological progression of the digital era where technology dominates human life, becoming an extension of the human body. Through their lens of gritty, inquisitive and vibrant compositions, Christto & Andrew ask whether technology is distorting our own perception of who we are, what makes us human and whether our time on this Earth is as tangible and malleable as a piece of delicious cake, or just “an illusion” captured in the photographic memories of our smartphones.

Christto & Andrew
Artists, Photographers

@christto_andrew

www.christtoandrew.com

Christto & Andrew ( Christian Sánchez Díaz, 1985 and Andrew Jay Weir, 1987 ) are an artistic duo from Puerto Rico and South Africa based in Doha, Qatar and Copenhagen, Denmark. Their collaboration started in 2012 while meeting in Barcelona, Spain as students. They work across various mediums including photography, installation and film. Christto & Andrew first gained international acclaim with their inclusion of the 2014 Foam Magazine “Talent Issue” and have since exhibited in solo exhibitions, group shows, biennials and art fairs worldwide, including the Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow (2015), Unseen Photo Fair, Amsterdam (2016), NRW – Forum Düsseldorf (2017) and have been included in publications such as The New Yorker, VogueItalia, Dazed magazine and the British Journal of Photography. Most recently they have been commissioned by the New Yorker Magazine to create three images for their yearly fictions issue. Christto Sanz received a BA from the Escuela De Artes Plásticas in San Juan Puerto Rico before completing his Master in Visual Communication and photography from Elisava, Barcelona Spain. Andrew Weir holds a BBA from Universitat Ramon Llull, Spain and an MA in Museum & Gallery Practice from University College London – Qatar.

Local Reflections

SEP 2022–JAN 2023

In Focus: Christto & Andrew

Christto & Andrew

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