Venus Grotto

Towards the end of the nineteenth century, King Ludwig II of Bavaria ordered an artificial cave to be built at his Linderhof Palace to represent Wagner’s operas. The cave could be illuminated in red, green or blue, depending on the atmosphere wanted. Neglecting his obligations as king, Ludwig II started to abscond from the external world, hiding in his castle until his death drawn in a lake. Using Ludwig’s life as a metaphor, Belinchón describes the 3 steps of the kings history by using landscape photographs. Dark mountains referring to the external world that became dark and tenebrous. The interior of natural caves with artificial illumination set for touristic visits. White snow landscapes as a symbol of death. This series of photographs unites a number of ideas Sergio Belinchón has been working since long time: tourism as a key factor in the artificialisation of natural spaces; the manipulation of nature, and man’s mark on particular environments. Belinchón’s photographs produce connotations of a world of fantasy und unreality. They reflect on the thin line between reality and fiction and allude to a pictorial abstraction of surprising plasticity. Aesthetically, his photographs resemble the shapeless materiality of not knowing what we are seeing.