Eugenio Recuenco 365: Photography Beyond Reality

“This is an invitation to abandon our convictions, and enter a world with our own rules.”
– Eugenio Recuenco

When my friend sent me screenshots of this exhibition’s information, there was not a moment of doubt before I answered, “let’s go.”

Huashan 1914 Creative Park has hosted numerous extremely popular exhibitions and events, such as Hello My Name is Paul Smith, Jason Freeny Asia, 4foodie’s Food Market… some of which I got to attend! Recently, the exhibition about to catch on fire is of course Eugenio Recuenco 365, a project produced under a time span of eight years and based on the idea of a photo a day (hence 365). In each photo, Recuenco plays with space and lighting to create images that we might expect to only see in our dreams.

The exhibition space itself is not big, since only 170 photos of the entire collection were selected to be put on display. Turning a corner after the entrance we found ourselves in a dark room projecting a short film introducing the 365 collection – putting the photographs in the middle with its references on both sides. Through the comparisons we could see how Eugenio Recuenco’s imagination is one of a kind. He recreated classic artworks with his own interpretations; mocked the empty promises fed to the public by politicians; echoed current events that brought on great impacts; presented social issues and stereotypes hidden in the materials, placement of props, and styling of models; took us on a ride through history and its cultures and trends; and sometimes, just created a beautiful presentation of unique fashion.

I truly enjoyed observing all the details in each photo and trying to understand what they meant. While it might’ve been better if the photos had some kind of brief explanation beside them about what inspired such a creation, it is understandable that with such a large amount of photos to display it may be too difficult to design an exhibition to fit into a small space and allow the visitor flow to run smoothly. But then, perhaps Recuenco wanted visitors to view his collection with their own interpretations as well. One interesting thing about this collection is that in each photo there was a calendar that showed the date (in Spanish! It was some good language practice for me). My friend and I thought we could try to find the creation made on the date of our birthdays and see how well it goes with our personalities. Unfortunately, mine was nowhere to be seen 😦

Eugenio Recuenco has long been a revered artist known for his surrealism presented in his works. He has also been the master behind numerous fashion and magazine photoshoots in collaboration with high-end brands such as Nina Ricci and Diesel. The 365 Exhibition toured around the globe before finally arriving in Taiwan to show us how photography can really jump out of the box and reach a state beyond the reality that we know. For this exhibition, several settings were recreated to real-life size for visitors to take photos with, inviting us to step into Recuenco’s mind and unleash our own creativity with posing!

Here are some photos that I took at the exhibition: