María Bleda (b. Castellón, 1969) and José María Rosa (b. Albacete, 1970).
Since their black-and-white series Football Pitches (1992-1995), Bleda and Rosa have focused their work on outdoor spaces and symbolic sites. In this illuminating early series (which still uses classic processes of photographic cataloguing), each of the 18 photographs was named after the location of the playing field in question. They followed the same process in Battlefields (1994-2016), where in addition to the name of the site, the title also includes the date (exact or approximate) on which the battle took place. It was perhaps this series that consolidated their position on the Spanish art photography scene, and they launched a series of subsequent multi-territorial projects. In their Cities series (1997-2000), the two artists turned their focus on the sites of ancient settlements on the Iberian Peninsula. Here the photographs concentrate on specific details, rather than visions of the whole.
Indeed, they examine these symbolic sites throughout their work essentially from the perspective of the present. There is no attempt to recreate the historical event or the original site. Rather, the place is shown just as they found it, albeit interrogated by the distance in time and the subjectivity of their imagery. The pictures in Origin (2003-present) are larger in size and the places are depicted as scenes. In their various Architectures series, they began to include longer texts with the works, specifying not only the location, but also additional information drawn from historical documents. This is also the case in their series Handbook. Notes on War and Revolution (2011-2013), from which the folders Trafalgar and Cadiz are taken. In 2008 the two artists received the National Photography Prize.
María Bleda (b. Castellón, 1969) and José María Rosa (b. Albacete, 1970).
Since their black-and-white series Football Pitches (1992-1995), Bleda and Rosa have focused their work on outdoor spaces and symbolic sites. In this illuminating early series (which still uses classic processes of photographic cataloguing), each of the 18 photographs was named after the location of the playing field in question. They followed the same process in Battlefields (1994-2016), where in addition to the name of the site, the title also includes the date (exact or approximate) on which the battle took place. It was perhaps this series that consolidated their position on the Spanish art photography scene, and they launched a series of subsequent multi-territorial projects. In their Cities series (1997-2000), the two artists turned their focus on the sites of ancient settlements on the Iberian Peninsula. Here the photographs concentrate on specific details, rather than visions of the whole.
Indeed, they examine these symbolic sites throughout their work essentially from the perspective of the present. There is no attempt to recreate the historical event or the original site. Rather, the place is shown just as they found it, albeit interrogated by the distance in time and the subjectivity of their imagery. The pictures in Origin (2003-present) are larger in size and the places are depicted as scenes. In their various Architectures series, they began to include longer texts with the works, specifying not only the location, but also additional information drawn from historical documents. This is also the case in their series Handbook. Notes on War and Revolution (2011-2013), from which the folders Trafalgar and Cadiz are taken. In 2008 the two artists received the National Photography Prize.