NEW YORK, NY.- Fine art photographer Max de Esteban's challenging and thought-provoking new monograph, Propositions (La Fábrica, October 2015) presents a rigorous investigation of today's embracement of technologies at the dawn of the bio-cybernetic era when the machine can be incorporated into the human body and mind changing forever the relationship between the human and the object, nature and culture.

In the Propositions series de Esteban explores post-humanism's implications in art, knowledge transmission, technology and society. As the artificial brain edges closer to reality, he poses uncomfortable questions: Is the human ability to create significant art over? What, if any, is going to be the role of Art in a post-human society?

Propositions brings together for the first time de Esteban's four photographic series made from 2011 to 2014. Art historians and curators Félix de Azúa , Rafael Argullol, Laura González Flores and Valentín Roma each provide an analysis of one series in the book relating it to their own theoretical perspectives about contemporary art issues as they reflect upon society as a whole.

The Proposition Series
In Proposition One -- Only The Ephemeral (2011), de Esteban focuses on technological obsolescence as a first stage of what he describes as "the rupture with centuries-old traditions of artistic practice." This series is tantamount to a visual graveyard for technology where the photographer memorializes recent cutting-edge electronic devices -- utilized in the creation and communication of art -- that are already considered outdated. To create his images, de Esteban takes apart old film projectors, 35mm film cameras, VHS tape players and record players, photographing the individual parts that he then meticulously reassembles. The resulting x-ray-like layered photographs of his reconstructions are reminiscent of architectural cyanotypes.

Proposition Two -- The Collection (2012) presents a series of photographs of stark, outdated looking classrooms devoid of people alongside images of human skulls. Here, de Esteban is exploring how technology, and specifically the age of the Internet with the advent of virtual classrooms and devices such as "smart boards," signifies the death of the schoolmaster that is being replaced by the cyborg. The teacher previously seen as a person of wisdom who imparts knowledge to the student is now reduced to a curriculum facilitator of lessons emanating from large, fantastic computer screens that have taken over the previously hallowed spot of the blackboard.

De Esteban describes Proposition Three -- Touch Me Not (2013) as the "consecration of the post-human technology." Here, he examines the cold, inscrutable inner life of cell phones, tablets and other common electronic devices and the increasing enmeshment of the body and digital technology. De Esteban uses multiple exposure techniques and overlapping transparent images to depict the (imaginary) inner digital microelectronic layers of the popular consumer goods that are dominating our lives and arguably isolating us from real human interaction and ingenuity.

Lastly, in Proposition Four -- Heads Will Roll (2014) de Esteban questions "the end of the world as we know it. The last breath of an industrial society that will end not without much suffering." To construct his works de Esteban mines a mass media that spews out an incessant stream of imagery of war, violence, and disasters transmitted 24/7 into our homes, offices, and public spaces. De Esteban merges and juxtaposes pictures, texts and found objects into dark-colored plates to produce photo-combines that present a cacophony of information that is at once dense with information yet visually legible. These captivatingly beautiful visual constructions reveal a world where violence, imagined or real, is always looming, and the viewer is left almost totally out of balance in a state of anxiety and unease.

In the tradition of Robert Rauschenberg, Sigmar Polke or John Baldessari, Max de Esteban's images function as meaningful units whose sense lies in the structure, more than in the sum of the parts. In these works, it is not important to identify objects or motifs, but to read the visual textures as text. Its fundamental value is to refer to the photograph as a language built through the active mediation of the photographer. Abstract in nature, de Esteban's images respond to precisely what the title suggests: they are propositions that break with the traditional schemes of representing time and space in photography, setting themselves up as affirmations indicating a different notion of it.

Exhibition and Artist Talk
This fall, Klompching Gallery in Dumbo, Brooklyn will present work from Heads Will Roll (Proposition Four). The show opens on September 12 and remains on view until October 30, 2015. There will be an opening reception with the artist on Saturday, September 12 from 6-8pm. The exhibition marks the official opening of Klompching's stunning new street level gallery space located at 89 Water Street, Brooklyn, New York 11201.

Accompanying the exhibition is an art monograph also entitled Heads Will Roll recently published by Hatje Cantz. The book includes insightful essays by curator Carles Guerra, and author Bill Kouwenhoven.

Max de Esteban will talk about his work and sign copies of his new book at the School of Visual Arts on September 15 from 7-8:30pm at 136 West 21st Street, Suite 418F, New York City. The talk is open to the public.

Max de Esteban (b. 1959) is a Fulbright Alumni who studied Engineering and holds a Ph.D. from the Universitat Ramon Llull and a Masters degree from Stanford University. His work has been featured at the Deutsche Technik Museum in Berlin, Rencontres Internationales at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris and Darmstadter Tage der Fotografie, among others. He is the recipient of the National Award of Professional Photography in Spain and the Jury's Special Award in Fotofestiwal, Poland. His monograph Heads Will Roll was recently listed as a photo-book of the year by Lens Culture magazine. De Esteban's work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions at art institutions worldwide, and is in the museum collections of Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Museu de Arte Modena do Rio de Janeiro in Brazil; and Deutsche Technik Museum in Berlin, Germany.