'So far, so close' by Leopold Samsó at Palau Solterra

The Palau Solterra has inaugurated the exhibition So far, so close which collects portraits that Samsó took during the 80s of artists and personalities from the world of art and culture such as Salvador Dalí, Jaume Plensa, Pau Riba or Ocaña; but also images of the "rogue" Barcelona resurgent from Francoism, of his travels around the world and of landscapes.

The exhibition, which can be visited from June 29 to November 17, and is curated by Pilar Parcerisas, shows a hundred photographs and proposes a tour through various territories and locations, as well as portraits of emerging artists in the Barcelona of the years eighties, as a counterpoint to the landscapes of Andalusia, Portugal and Latin America. The telluric landscapes of Iceland close his latest project, a mixture of photography and documentary that he has worked with Franc Aleu and that can be seen in the exhibition. Photographs that invoke the essence of photography, from a pure classicism that returns it to its origins.

© Leopold Samsó: Nens jugant. Fez, Marroc. 1972

The symmetry, the balance, the optical, perceptive and theatrical vision of the photograph bring it closer to the spectacle of the magic lantern. Samsó confesses that, before shooting a photograph, he often used to make a preliminary drawing or sketch, and that, starting with a photo assignment for a toy company, he was drawn to magic games. This magical component has always been seen in photography.

His photography, as the curator of the exhibition says: "has nothing to do with the poetics of the moment, but rather with the aesthetics and poetics of permanence. Natural light fascinates this photographer. It makes the most of the ability of light, the power to the extreme to endow the photograph with a special drama when appropriate. Photography becomes a kind of ritual, a natural and mechanical gesture at the same time that ends in rest and silence. It's an act that goes from a fleeting moment to a fact that remains, like a miracle between a reality that travels from the ephemeral to the immutable."

Leopold Samsó (Barcelona, 1946) is a photographer known for his famous portraits of personalities from the world of art and culture. He has dedicated more than fifty years to photography, living it as a trade from which he has learned all the tricks and secrets. His brilliant advertising and publishing career has not prevented him from developing a personal work as a photographer of such a singularity that it is hardly comparable to other photographic views that we know.