Presentation
The end is not the absence of things, but the discreet presence of abandonment. A presence that becomes eloquent when we perceive that all things around begin to remain silent. The city we walk through and we see – if at all – from an absolutely horizontal perspective, that is, from our same level of observation, has long been erratic, lonely, sad, full of strange fire and self-improbability of the invincible, as it is that end of the world announced in atavistic prophecies. But the truth is that there will be no revelations or mysteries, we will not get far in the mystical pretensions of the soul. In the end there will only be abandonment, cold loneliness marking the spaces of return. And the end is now, as they show these pictures of the series Hello End of the World, where indolence about the city, over their spaces, are shown in cool colors. Viewed from above, from a vertical and superior angle, as if God himself – or some God – observed it, the city is the sign of the neglect that drives the human traffic. I follow in this series the idea posed by the spanish photographer José Manuel Navia on photography: it does not have to symbolize anything, but to mean something, to give meaning to what it registers, and to give open and fruitful meaning to the image, as an offer to the viewer. So I must say that I always surprise when I hear some photographers say that there is nothing to photograph in the city. You should be honest and recognize that it is they who have lost interest. In reality, we will never reach life to photograph everything that a city offers, anyone, even the smallest. Even to the end of the world, to the end of things. The abandonment that the human being submits to the city, after usufructing it to wear, is an inexhaustible theme, for example.
Humberto Lemos, Brazilian photographer, say:
Nelson Gonzalez Leal, in his strong trajectory influenced the classic photography. Observer of urban landscapes and behaviors social, goes beyond the cold and geometric compositions from this school, standing out for the confluent mathematics between
the public and private space. The sociological study developed by him, refers to the extrapolated questions of the use of space, bringing to light, architectural dismantling inherent in the formalistic planning of an inert society.
In his essay Hello End Of The World he reveals, as a voracious observer, the overdraft. Its terraces, its permissive invasion, lead us masterfully to a color stamped universe, sweats, absences, and giddiness. As if we were imprisoned, the photographer seems to open doors for leaks.
A yellow bucket, a ladder. A tangent.
Pía Bouzas, Argentinian writer say:
The camera of Nelson González Leal finds in a stained wall of the city, almost lost, the legend with printed letters: hello end of the world. And in the legend, the key of the whole series, because it is not a name only, the legend puts us before an enigma: who wrote this? And what did he want to tell us? The words are just an imprint, the opening to a scene that worries us because of what has left us, which invites us to play the imagination to make sense. The pictures that compose this beautiful photographic work share the characteristic of disquieting, of suggesting by contrast, of standing in front of questions. They place us in front of stairs that rise very high nowhere, abandoned office chairs, a half-repaired basketball hoop. It happens that we are late to the scene, the characters are gone and we find some objects forgotten, out of use or with other functions, remains, waste. We traverse these stolen images to the everyday heights as detectives. Because there are roofs, terraces with loungers and lines of pans where no one washes anything, which comes from an anachronistic luxury. At the end of the world he is looked at from above, he greets him near the sky.
The images invent an abandoned city, worn out, a kinetic and abstract Caracas left to its fate, parallel to and contrary to the plastic art that has given it modern identity: facades with small demolished ceramics that refer to the murals of Cruz-Diez, perfect sequences barred windows, serial installations of water pipes or air conditioners, doves that assemble a geometric design on a roof of veneers and are no longer doves, perhaps empty bottles of beer.
But even if it seems so, this world made of pure exterior is not uninhabited. They appear, surprisingly, a trio of women, a pair of men, the fleeting silhouette of a child. They do not abound in the series; appear carelessly, surprised almost out of picture; and they are simply, they look the other way, never to camera. Wait. They see time passing, because time, yes, seems stopped. What has disappeared in this end of the world is the world of work, only the domestic and the feminine persist as strategies for survival, maintenance. He shakes by contrast, a man sunbathing on a stool, only surrendered to his enjoyment, indifferent to the abandonment that haunts him from the other pictures. But not only is deterioration what meets the eye: there is a promise of heaven in that blue face of the series and a double door closed under pressure, rusty, that comes out on the roof of a building, all plate faded, ocher, inviting to wait and see what happens; which announces, as if it were beating, an imminent opening.
nelson gonzález leal 