Sunday 11 March 2012

On Jonathan Ellery's '136 Points of Reference' (posted on 11/3/12)

Jonathan Ellery, '136 Points of Reference', 2005. Print screen.






















In 2005, London based Graphic Designer, Jonathan Ellery, released a book through out which he examined the influences ''... that have informed and defined his and the studios’ work.''[1]

Through the book, Ellery is attempting to testify his points of reference; images and objects, books and photographs that, in one way or another, had an effect on, or they are connected to him. It is a personal archive that he wants to celebrate but at the same time to let go. Hence, in order to do that, he has to be sure that he will save it from oblivion by documenting it through photography, since photography's very essence is to reproduce to infinity ''... what could never be repeated existentially.'' [2]

So, in a sense, Jonathan Ellery is immortalizing 136 Points of Reference of his. On that basis, it seems that as a designer, initiates a project that shares the same ideas, in a different form though, with Gerhard Richter's 'Atlas'. It is this very human impulsion for individual commemoration as well as the fear of death and destruction -which oblivion stands for in this particular context- that creates this framework from which such projects emerge within contemporary visual culture.


Notes:
1. http://jonathanellery.com/projects/?id=6&subcat=&cat=3&i=27
2. Barthes, R. (1981) Camera Lucida. New York: Hill and Wang

Nikos Georgopoulos
London,
March 2012

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