Alberto Lizaralde (BlankPaper School alumnus) has been interviewed WhiteLoupe anywhere. Here we put the translation of the article. The English original is here: http://thewhiteloupe.com/post/Artist-Interview-Series-Alberto-Lizaralde-
In the past two weeks I have had the pleasure of speaking with Alberto Lizaralde, a photographer with whom I met recently. Do not remember where I first saw it but his work "Fragile" simply left me breathless. Left open website in my browser for a week to get back to it and see the pictures again and again. Alberto, a person with many thoughts, is a multifaceted artist who comes from Spain. He shares with us his views on "Fragile", photography, and how to know himself.
Where were you born?
was born in Aranjuez. A small town near Madrid (Spain).How old are you?
33
Where do you live now?
currently live in Madrid (Spain)
Tell me a little about "Fragile" What is the idea / inspiration behind?
Frail is a personal project I've been working for over a year. Revolves around the concept of human frailty. Both physically and emotionally.
'Fragile' speaks of those everyday moments when everything falls apart. Small moments in our life changes, turns and breaks. Suspended moments when something just happened or is about to happen. It's about control over ourselves and our surroundings.
I'm working with this idea: We are vulnerable in the everyday.
The project builds on a particular personal situation. This situation affected my mood and ended up leading to a photography project. The first pictures were taken on a trip to Costa Rica with a close friend. The work represents a moderate change in the way I shoot about my previous work. It has been a shift toward the personal. More focus on a way to express that in a form of communication.
is a very personal project that tries to speak of a universal feeling.
in your transition to use photography as a form of communication to use it as a form of personal expression or photos do you look the same things in a different form or order directly from a completely different way?
guess it's a mixture of both. That is totally intuitive and nothing premeditated. It was more a necessity than a transformation in the way I shoot. This is not what I look around a reality that fits what I have. That does not interest me. What interests me is the sincerity of his eyes. The pictures that move us, that make us stay on them and make them our own are those that show the honesty and sincerity of the photographer behind. The photos that the photographer is exposed. All the rest are form. No photos good or bad but sincere or insincere.
How long have you taken in this project (Fragile)?
consciously began a year and a half or so. But they are actually photographs that unconsciously I started to take a lot earlier. Then in the editing process is where I realized what I had in my hands. It was there where work began to take shape as it is today.
Anyway is a job that I continue to develop and continue to do so for long because a long way to go and not a project limited in space or time.
seems very tricky to do, take a picture to convey that moment of collapse. How do you get? Think before photographs or something more instinctive?
None of the photos of "Fragile" is ready. Except for a self-portrait (which is there to emphasize the personal aspect of working) the rest of the pictures are moments captured as part of personal experiences. They are friends, colleagues or people who have crossed my path. So it is with the spaces and objects (which I like to give the same size as the portraits). I like the dynamism implicit that can transmit a still image. When something is about to happen. That moment of transition. Are pictures that help me to ask me questions for which I do not know the answer.
All photographs are born of a drive to pull the trigger. Freud called unavoidable drive to force the id placed in leading the subject to meet their basic needs. Cause psychic conflict when they are not adequately met. So I feel the picture. As an almost physical need. One way to know myself. Throughout art history this has been the human quest: the search for ourselves.
intintivo It's just like you said. I like to think to take the picture, there must be intellectual. Because let's be honest. You stop being you. Think more about the result and less on the photograph. The time to think about is the issue. That should give you round and round and round. And let's not push for time. The picture needs time. With time the photos end up joining one another almost magically.
Anyway is a job that I continue to develop and continue to do so for long because a long way to go and not a project limited in space or time.
seems very tricky to do, take a picture to convey that moment of collapse. How do you get? Think before photographs or something more instinctive?
None of the photos of "Fragile" is ready. Except for a self-portrait (which is there to emphasize the personal aspect of working) the rest of the pictures are moments captured as part of personal experiences. They are friends, colleagues or people who have crossed my path. So it is with the spaces and objects (which I like to give the same size as the portraits). I like the dynamism implicit that can transmit a still image. When something is about to happen. That moment of transition. Are pictures that help me to ask me questions for which I do not know the answer.
All photographs are born of a drive to pull the trigger. Freud called unavoidable drive to force the id placed in leading the subject to meet their basic needs. Cause psychic conflict when they are not adequately met. So I feel the picture. As an almost physical need. One way to know myself. Throughout art history this has been the human quest: the search for ourselves.
intintivo It's just like you said. I like to think to take the picture, there must be intellectual. Because let's be honest. You stop being you. Think more about the result and less on the photograph. The time to think about is the issue. That should give you round and round and round. And let's not push for time. The picture needs time. With time the photos end up joining one another almost magically.
is interesting that you get the theme of the need to photograph, because it's something I've thought a lot lately. Animal is almost a necessity, as I said before, you can not or should not be seen until after the photographic act. If you think a lot in making you devalue the reality you are trying to capture. Could you talk a little more about this need? Is it the same in other art forms?
is not really much to disrupt the reality you intend capture. In my case I am not interested in catching and capture the reality as it is. Because there will always be false. I am interested in the dialogue that occurs with that reality. Some people say that photography (and art) is a way of knowing the world. But perhaps it is more a way of knowing ourselves. Andrey Tarkovsky said that human beings are on earth to improve ourselves spiritually. And that art is a means to get there. All so boring and intellectually I am saying at the end leads to what I said before: an interest in his own creative experience and an almost physical need to be developed. The intention comunicaconal comes after at least in my case. It's like the work of Andy Goldsworthy (if you have not seen the documentary about him called "Rivers and Tides" should). Their great quest is personal and intimate connection with the world around him. That personal moment of collapse or ecstasy at the time of creating something. And I do not care that his works are ephemeral. This is the search for balance, which ultimately is what we all seek.
For me, photography has two moments. The first is the need to shoot something as intimate experience. The second step is communication. The time out for others. The moment it ceases to be yours and becomes the other. Because a picture can not die in oneself. We are social animals. The photograph must share because many people might feel the same way you felt doing it. And nobody, not even the author has the right to deprive anyone of it.
But none of this makes sense if the end result is not positive. Many photographers are very negative at times and we live in a dark cloud over our heads. Although during the process often suffer in the end we should be happy. If we suffer with photography nothing makes sense. If we had fun, everything fits. This is a very important part.
I want to ask about the two recent photographs of the work (the fish and something floating in a puddle that reflects the sky). I wanted to because I was very fascinated by them. Where / how / why were they taken?
For me, photography has two moments. The first is the need to shoot something as intimate experience. The second step is communication. The time out for others. The moment it ceases to be yours and becomes the other. Because a picture can not die in oneself. We are social animals. The photograph must share because many people might feel the same way you felt doing it. And nobody, not even the author has the right to deprive anyone of it.
But none of this makes sense if the end result is not positive. Many photographers are very negative at times and we live in a dark cloud over our heads. Although during the process often suffer in the end we should be happy. If we suffer with photography nothing makes sense. If we had fun, everything fits. This is a very important part.
I want to ask about the two recent photographs of the work (the fish and something floating in a puddle that reflects the sky). I wanted to because I was very fascinated by them. Where / how / why were they taken?
have been carried out in different places. Actually in my pictures no matter where they are made. This work is not limited either in space or time. This allows greater freedom when shooting. But it is also a danger because nothing you say when you're done with the work.
The first (a photograph of the fish) was taken in Portugal on a trip. The fish were swimming in the sea along the drainage of a city. Down the drain out all the dirt and grime of the city. Thousands of fish are fought from eating these wastes of human beings. The image I found surprising, chaotic, frenzied. They are animals that are surviving on the remains of other animals. Lately I've been editing this picture with one that can see a girl her hair in a moment of "collapse" emotional. When editing the two pictures together fish become a metaphor for the emotions of the girl, and by extension all of us. A lot of thoughts and feelings that fight to be the first and offer result in a frenzied chaos, yet teeming with life.
Do you think you will at some point a sense of having completed a project like this? Or maybe it's something that will continue throughout your life?
This is a good question. It's something that has haunted me many times. As a work without physical or temporal limitation is sometimes difficult to know when it will end. Before I mentioned something about this. By relying heavily on moods I think it's a job that will and return to my head with some frequency. Anyway, I think it's a job for now, I have no intention of ending. I think with me for long and, of course, undergo changes and mutations. At the end we tend to give names to our jobs or projects, we are obliged to, but often is simply a way of photographing that extends throughout the life of the photographer. For me, all photographs by Anders Petersen, Daido Moriyama, or Nan Goldin, for example, belong to the same "project." A project that spans a lifetime. Separate your photographs in works / projects / books are simply a way to force open closed doors following. Chapters are small tax to the same work. It is a matter of resetting the mind. And sometimes comes in handy.
What is the first photographic memory you have of your childhood?
The first memory I have is thanks to my brother. My brother bought a small trace of a collection of yellow books on photographic technique. My father (who worked in a factory making photosensitive film) my brother taught basics of photography. My brother bought a 35mm SLR camera and started taking photos.
I think I started with photography by envy. A feeling that has never brought anything good man in my own brought me. Was jealous that my brother did so I removed pictures books photo yellow without the knowledge and I started to practice with the camera. One of the things that I thank my brother. Although it has never said.
soon Do you have any exposure?
now participate in the collective exhibition of BlankPaper Anuario2. It has been shown for two months in Madrid (Spain) and now start to show by several English cities.
I have some very clear ideas on how to display my photos but now I'm more focused on having a solid work, coherent and powerful in showing in a gallery or exhibition hall.
What's next?
I have no idea. And that's what I love about photography. I do not know what I do now. I do not know what's next. That's what moves me. That's the most fun. If you knew the way I think I'd better leave.
