Limited-Edition Photograph by Geoffrey H. Short

"An exploration of ideas of risk, beauty, terror, and the sublime. The fuel explosion is part of the cinematic vocabulary of special effects, and as such is a simulation of an unnatural terror. Fossil fuel (with all its geo-political associations) mixed with gunpowder (with its own history of war, plots, and dangerous entertainment) makes for an unpredictable, dramatic, and multi-layered imaging material. This work is both an interrogation of that material, and an investigation into the differences between the live experience of a bomb and the two-dimensional representation of it as an aesthetic object. While they document actual, staged explosions, they allude to every explosion from the original big bang of creation to the anxiously anticipated big bang of a terrorist bomb or nuclear disaster. The near absence of a recognizable, physical context in which the explosions occur emphasizes this referential quality, leaving the viewer to imagine their own context, to supply their own narrative around these isolated, climactic moments."

—Geoffrey H. Short

Aperture is pleased to offer our collecting audience Geoffrey H. Short's Untitled Explosion #1CF2, as featured in reGeneration 2: Tomorrow's Photographers Today, the second book in the esteemed series shining a spotlight on the next generation's rising stars.

Inspired by the many artists from the original 2005 reGeneration publication who went on to develop international careers, Aperture has prepared limited editions by several of the 2010 volume's participating artists, some of whose work will be available for purchase for the very first time. The sale of these prints will help support these emerging artists—and give collectors an opportunity to acquire their work early in their careers.

"Geoffrey H. Short subtitles the enigmatic series shown here 'The sublime, the terror and the allusion'—three concepts he questions in his work. He thereby questions the concepts so often debated in the field of photography—illusion and allusion. Although Short's photographs document events that actually took place—these particular ones required the collaboration of special-effects technicians—they also refer to other explosions: the big bang, of course, a terrorist bombing, an atomic explosion..."

—Nathalie Hershdorfer

Geoffrey H. Short (born in New Zealand, 1962) graduated with honors from Elam School of Fine Arts at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, in 2009. He has participated in numerous solo and group shows in New Zealand, and his work is held in the collections of the Musée d'Elysée, Lausanne, Switzerland, and Michaelis School of Fine Arts, Cape Town, South Aftrica.

> Visit Short's website

>Visit the reGeneration 2 microsite

>View "Geoffrey H. Short Interview: reGeneration2"