Chema Madoz, Untitled, Madrid, 2006. Photo: Courtesy the artist and Robert Klein Gallery.

BOSTON, MASS.- Spanish photographer Chema Madoz, whose minimal and surreal black and white photographs have been exhibited extensively worldwide, is being exhibited in Boston for the first time with a solo show at Robert Klein Gallery. The exhibition, Sin Titulo, opened on Saturday, May 10, and runs through June 21, 2014.

A noose made of pearls. A cloud in a birdcage. Madoz's images are fanciful, poetic, humorous and contemplative. As both object-creator and image-maker, Madoz is doubly involved in the final product; he is as much behind the lens as he is in front of it. Even so, his presence is hardly felt. Beautifully printed and toned gelatin silver prints, these photographs do not present as overly constructed or clever. Instead, in the Surrealist tradition of Man Ray. Dora Maar, Brassai, and Salvador Dali, they prompt us to look beyond what we see.

Toying with the concept of photography and its "special status with regard to the real," as Rosalind Krauss writes in the 1985 exhibition catalog for L'amour fou: Photography & surrealism, Madoz imagines illusory relationships between real objects. In presenting the unexpected, he asks the viewer to make a mental leap and celebrates the cognitive dissonance that comes about as a result.

Madoz's curiosity with objects started at a very young age. In an interview with José María Parreño, published in Chema Madoz: 2000-2005, Madoz recalls a watershed moment in elementary school:

I arrived late on the first day of class. All the other children were already seated around a large table in the kitchen and there was no space for me. The teacher said, Don't worry, we'll prepare a place right away, and she opened the door of the oven so that I could use it as a desk. I sat down on my stool with my notebook lying on the open door and looked into the black interior of the oven.

Born in Madrid, Spain, in 1958, Chema Madoz studied art history at the Centro de Enseñanza de la Imagen. His work has been shown throughout Europe, Asia, South America, and the United States and is in museum collections worldwide. Madoz will have an exhibition in France at Les Rencontres d'Arles Photographie 2014 later this year. 

Chema Madoz, Untitled, Madrid, 1996. Photo: Courtesy the artist and Robert Klein Gallery. 

Chema Madoz, Untitled, Madrid, 1996. Photo: Courtesy the artist and Robert Klein Gallery.

Chema Madoz, Untitled, Madrid, 1996. Photo: Courtesy the artist and Robert Klein Gallery.

Chema Madoz, Untitled, Madrid, 1997. Photo: Courtesy the artist and Robert Klein Gallery.

Chema Madoz, Untitled, Madrid, 2000. Photo: Courtesy the artist and Robert Klein Gallery.

Chema Madoz, Untitled, Madrid, 2000. Photo: Courtesy the artist and Robert Klein Gallery.

Chema Madoz, Untitled, Madrid, 2001. Photo: Courtesy the artist and Robert Klein Gallery.

Chema Madoz, Untitled, Madrid, 2002. Photo: Courtesy the artist and Robert Klein Gallery.

Chema Madoz, Untitled, Madrid, 2003. Sold out. Photo: Courtesy the artist and Robert Klein Gallery. 

Chema Madoz, Untitled, Madrid, 2004. Photo: Courtesy the artist and Robert Klein Gallery. 

Chema Madoz, Untitled, Madrid, 2004. Photo: Courtesy the artist and Robert Klein Gallery.

Chema Madoz, Untitled, Madrid, 2004. Photo: Courtesy the artist and Robert Klein Gallery.

Chema Madoz, Untitled, Madrid, 2005. Photo: Courtesy the artist and Robert Klein Gallery. 

Chema Madoz, Untitled, Madrid, 2005. Photo: Courtesy the artist and Robert Klein Gallery. 

Chema Madoz, Untitled, Madrid, 2007. Photo: Courtesy the artist and Robert Klein Gallery. 

Chema Madoz, Untitled, Madrid, 2007. Photo: Courtesy the artist and Robert Klein Gallery.

Chema Madoz, Untitled, Madrid, 2008. Photo: Courtesy the artist and Robert Klein Gallery.

Chema Madoz, Untitled, Madrid, 2009. Photo: Courtesy the artist and Robert Klein Gallery.