Cristina de Middel: Apoteosis Now

Unmoored from any sequential framework, de Middel’s images propose a way of seeing that reveals the disorientation of our timeCombining documentary and conceptual techniques, the work of Magnum photographer Cristina de Middel (born 1975) is driven by narrative. Her projects have often begun from reconstructed stories or symbolic universes that made it possible to bring order to the chaos of the world. Now, de Middel’s newest photobook turns the narrative axis on its head. Through a selection of more than 250 photographs, Apoteosis Now suspends chronology and plot, resisting the urge to explain or discourse. Whether of stacks of pizza crusts, a child on a horse or a curtain softly blowing before an open window, these images are autonomous, existing in and of themselves. Because they are stripped of sequence, they also reshape the rhythm of reading. They invite the viewer to linger a little longer than usual before each image, to grant it a kind of attention we rarely allow today.