26 may 2025, Flor Linckens
Albarrán Cabrera and the poetry of seeing
In the group exhibition 'Blooming' at Bildhalle in Zurich, the work of Spanish photography duo Albarrán Cabrera is presented in dialogue with that of artists like Arne Quinze, Paul Cupido and Thirza Schaap. Curated by Martin Kiefer, former curator of contemporary art at the Louvre, the exhibition explores the notion of blooming in the broadest sense of the word: as a sensory experience, as inner layering and as a poetic metaphor. The exhibition can also be viewed online on GalleryViewer until 28 June.
Anna Cabrera and Ángel Albarrán have been working together in Barcelona since 1996, for almost thirty years now. Their practice does not centre on documenting reality, but rather on questioning it. In their images, memory, impression, meaning and time continually interact and are transformed in the mind of the viewer. The artists are not interested in a singular truth, but rather in the tension and interplay between experience, perception and reality. The duo is fascinated by the gap between what is real and what we perceive as real. Because what we see is always coloured by who we are, what we have lived through and where we come from. And that body of memories is not fixed, but constantly shifting. When we look at an image, our brain draws on previous memories to make sense of it, while simultaneously forming new impressions and associations. In doing so, new memories arise, which in turn shape the way we see the world.
Working in close symbiosis, the artists regard photography as a philosophical instrument for understanding the world beyond the tangible. It is a medium that lends itself particularly well to conveying complex ideas without the use of words. Albarrán Cabrera: “We feel that photography can help the viewers to understand concepts [that are] difficult to understand in other ways. A set of images makes the viewer to be in the same wavelength as we are.” The resulting poetic images reveal the beauty, the sublime and the magic of the world around us. Japan has long been a key source of inspiration, not only its landscape but also its thinkers and artists.
An essential part of their practice is their deep engagement with printing techniques and materials, driven by a fascination with the chemical dimension of photography. For Albarrán Cabrera, their work does not end with the moment of capture but only gains full meaning in the darkroom. There, they build on processes such as cyanotype, platinum, palladium, pigment printing and gold leaf on Japanese paper. These materials affect not only the image itself but also the way it is perceived. Each print is handmade and unique, even within a limited edition.
A photograph by Albarrán Cabrera does not tell a fixed story but opens up a space in which viewers may project their own memories. At the heart of their work lies the question of how images can activate memory. The duo regards memory as a dynamic and subjective mechanism. Their work invites introspection, a re-experiencing or even a re-creation of personal memories, shaped by one's cultural background, emotional life and associative capacity. That way, the image effectively becomes a catalyst for meaning. Each photograph marks only the starting point of a mental construction that unfolds in the viewer’s mind. The outcome remains unknown, as every viewer brings their own world into the encounter.
The practice of Albarrán Cabrera draws inspiration from neuroscience, Eastern aesthetics and philosophy, academic cultural analysis and other artists. On social media, they frequently share quotations by figures such as Monet, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Francis Bacon, philosophers like Charles Baudelaire, filmmakers including Richard Linklater and David Lynch, and writers and critics such as Susan Sontag. Like these artists, Albarrán Cabrera do not aim for a direct representation of the world but rather for a reimagining of it. Their work moves along the boundary between the recognisable and the abstract, the sensory and the imagined.
Angel Albarrán was born in Barcelona in 1969, and Anna Cabrera in the same year in Seville. Their work has been exhibited internationally and is held in the collections of Hermès, the Goetz Collection, the German Bundestag’s Art Collection, Banco de Santander and De Nederlandsche Bank.
