Bleda y Rosa
Castellón, Spain, 1969 – Albacete, Spain, 1970
Cráneo de Gibraltar. Forbes Quarry, 2003
Homo Spyensis. Spy, 2007
Homo Floresiensis. Liang Bua, 2007
Hombre de Pacitan. Song Terus, 2007

Photographs of series Origen, 2003-2008
Inkjet on cotton paper, mounted on Dibond
124 x 222 cm
Edition 5 + 1 AP
Acquired 2018

María Bleda and José María Rosa have been photographing landscapes for over twenty-five years, always with the same goal of scrutinizing the possible traces of past events, or absence thereof, that have taken place in the location they shoot. The composition is classical, always painterly, somewhat impersonal, and functions as some sort of forensic evidence. Therefore, they question the way collective knowledge and the imaginary are constructed.

The four works on display are part of Origen (Origin), an ongoing series Bleda y Rosa started working on in 2003. In this instance, the artistic duo has researched sites where major anthropological discoveries were made, which helped to demonstrate Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution and to understand the development of humankind over the course of the past 1.8 million years. Each of the titles is composed of the name of the human remains that were discovered, followed by the geographical location where they were excavated. The image documents the site of their discovery, while the name of the type of human appears underneath, as a title for the image, also pointing to the discrepancy between the appearance of the image and the historical relevance of the site.