Clegg & Guttmann have been developing a photographic project based on the existing links between aesthetic power and real power since the beginning of the 1980s. They have developed a visual and physical apparatus that ranges between austerity and opulence, between what is glamorous and that which is discursive.
What we have here is a secret system of references which serve to link various genres. The unique approach of their work to artistic production involves the demonstration of an equal interest for sociological and everyday matters, for scientific and philosophical ones. As such, the multiplicity and polyvalence of readings and meanings which originate from their libraries and portraits proves absolutely astonishing.

In the case of libraries and book shops, far from being merely descriptive or documentary photographs, they propose a nuanced approach. We are not dealing with a neutral documentation exclusively referring to general or architectural shots of libraries. Rather, their focus opts for an intimate perspective of specific parts and details of those libraries (in this show, those chosen include the Ateneo Library in Madrid, that of the Spanish Royal Academy and the Spanish National Library), as well as the shelves themselves and the spines of the books. What we are witnessing is a visual approximation to text, the main object of the existence of libraries, and not so much to the descriptive dimension of the building. These are epistemological constructions aimed at the confrontation between function and functioning, which propose a solid positioning in the midst of the cultural process that they are undertaking.

Their photographs suggest a contrast between the visual fact and aesthetic and theoretical concepts, thereby proposing a photographic reading which is extremely close to being objectual.

The photographs of libraries, or perhaps we should refer to them as photos of shelves or photos of books (in fact, they themselves have referred to some of their most famous pieces as sculptures of knowledge), illustrate the difference between what is visible and what is real.

In some of their earlier projects they built up false bookshelves housing trompe l’oeil effects of photographs of books and shelves originating from a range of libraries. Most well-known are the examples from the so-called Displaced Library (which houses part of Sigmund Freud’s book collection) as a transgressive displacement of books, not just physically, but also psychologically; the so-called Moebius Library (which repositioned the dominant figure of Lacan and deconstructed the hierarchy established between up and down, depth and surface); or alternatively Sha’at’nez (a collection of books originating from varying places and which constitute a challenge not just to the unity of the collection but also to the unity and uniformity of knowledge), and the paradigmatic False Perspective (which generates an illusion based on a simulation of the effect of foreshortening and which proposes a display of various boxes of photographs which appear to be a great library and whose books are arranged together in a photographic montage which mixes up different library and bibliographical provenances.

Along with the libraries, the photographs of portraits also feature at this exhibition. Three portraits, a group of collectors, an artist and a gallery-owner, they all belong to the Spanish cultural context, and are testimony to the suggestive atmosphere created between a series of dark and Baroque backgrounds and the imposing presence of figures and faces absorbed in the worrying, dramatic and theatrical mises en scènes.