Oscar Monzon: KARMA

Óscar Monzón (Málaga, Spain – 1981) lives and works in Madrid. He is a member of BlankPaper collective from its foundation date in 2003, and from that year he develops different projects. He has been awarded a Visual Arts and Photography grant from the Spanish Ministry of Culture to work at Colegio de España in Paris (France), a grant from Fundación Temas de Arte, has been selected for Descubrimientos PHE and was finalist at the First Book Award 2013.

Spain –

In Karma, a project developed in Madrid between 2009 and 2013, Óscar Monzón focuses on the car as a means of transportation that is not entirely distinct from the person who inhabits it, for the vehicle is in itself a product of the wheel that endlessly spins inside us.

Karma explores a range of unconscious human behaviours imprinted on our memory. In terms of the relationship we establish with the car, these forms of conduct materialise in specific ways: detachment, competition, aggressiveness.

Applying a visual language that eliminates the illusion of depth and emphasises abstraction, Karma brings us up close to the paradoxical intimacy provided by the car within public space, reflecting its occupants’ attitudes. The sequence of images combine human skin with aggressively designed bodyworks; headlights in the night conjure the image of wild animals; close-up flashes confront the people portrayed.

Ultimately, this work reveals the social and aesthetic evolution of humankind, driven by our abiding desire to attain the perfection of a machine.

“Karma is a brilliantly crafted mess of pictures taken from different angles between 2009 and 20013, is a book by Spanish Photographer Oscar Monzon about the relationship between vehicles waiting on the traffic light at night and people inside it.” – Manik Katyal

ISBN 979-10-90306-18-9

RVB Books/Dalpine, 2013