2010-08-22
It's a slow process. I've been working on the Chinese Opera for five years now. After the production of the Lu Qian Ren character, his costume, his story, his performance, I now organize the production of its porcelain... which I think will be the last step of this project. What is the idea of producing this porcelain? I expect it to be one more step real, at least to reach a certain tangibility... I have the Idea of a book title too: "Found Mr Wang", It will be a story, starting from the Opera series to this porcelain...
2010-08-22
New Cover of IL magazine, with the Penitente series, 2004... made in Sevilla during the Semana Santa. The series was also shown this year in Utrecht for the Fotodok festival.
2010-07-11
Nudity, rinkle, darkness... Sometime, you sit your ass in a crossroad and wonder if you'll choose the school of Caravagio or the one of Vermeer... My heart is in between. I love the light in everywhere, like if the light was coming from the subject itself, and also, I love to bring my own light in a context which has a particular light, a usual one. When a place is dark, it's just a fantaisy to decide to light it all, to see what you're not usually seeing. I went this time at the RUDAS bath, in Budapest, one of the oldest public baths of the town, that I discovered 8 years ago (while I was doing the Sihuhu series in Hungary). I really wanted to do a project there, something dealing with old bodies. I felt that nudity (not complete) would be interesting for me if there's really a reason why the person I photograph are nude for a real reason. And this public bath have been the best place - almost mythologic - to face the old nudity, the body as it is and not as we wish it to be.
2010-07-11
A picture of my setting, byKudász Gábor Arion, Hungarian photographer who kindly assisted me for the Rudas series. We needed a team for this project, to find the models, to get the permission from the bath, to work on the settings. Gergely Lazlo and Peter Rakozi (POC members) made my project possible.
2010-07-11
What a contrast, isn't it? This is one of the images of my Jockey series... The show will start only in October and I still work on my selection. This image is very important for me, since there's something between the statism and the movement. Things are really static and give the feeling of a captured gesture. Not too far of Muybridge, Could not stop thinking of the Baltasar Carlos on his poney, by Velasquez ("El Príncipe Baltasar Carlos a Caballo").
2010-06-07
Life is busy, as usual... with several new series, mainly commissioned which take me on different territories that I already explored like this project for the New-York times magazine, coming out this week, showing a set of portraits of the next generation of American soccer player. I photographed in Dallas and Salt Lake city, in USA, Oslo and (near) Amsterdam, in Europe. A very good experience to get further with portraits in a very tight schedule. I discovered my attitude with portrait more "elegant" than I would have done it a few years ago. It's strange to admit that, but I sometime get a few instincts from fashion maybe... like if there would be a "style" involved. Usually, I thinkI would have been more radical and still, it's just the same work, I'm sure. I'm just not 25 years old anymore. In my first book (Portraits photographiques et uniformes", talking about the Notre dame series, Philippe Arbaizar wrote that somehow, the empathy in my work was probably coming from my age. I was 25 and my models were around 18-20... I was often the age of the persons I photographed. Now, there's a difference, and I can feel it. The relation is different and also give me the capacity to photograph another generation... older than me.
www.nytimes.com/pages/magazine/index.html
2010-05-21
I just start to show some of the images of the Wilder-men series... At the moment, I'm showing my images from Italy, Hungary and Austria.
2010-03-18
And sometime, I do fashion... This is in the last ANOTHER Magazine (Issue 18, Spring/summer 2010). I collaborated with Karen Langley, Mae Delaney and Zoe Maughan, Tomoro Ohashi (Hair) and Hiromi Ueda (Make-up). We worked with 14 models from 8 agencies around a fashion project twisting sport uniform, fashion and a touch of burlesque. I loved doing this.
2010-02-09
I'm in Austria, finally starting my new project about primitivism: I can not totally explain what I'm looking for, but I think I definitively need to face a certain wildness, in the context of some old communities and their ritual... I have started with the Pechten and Wilder men in Austria. This project will take me in Hungary, Switzerland, East and South of France, Italy and Germany... I feel there is a part of myself dealing with the very codified uniforms of the Empire series, or the Chinese Opera costume, so elegant they are. And then, there is some space for this wildness too...also if the communities I have started to meet have also some complex systems, rituals, a wish to be. On the top of everything, the mask is totally hiding the face. No eyes appearing... Identity has to be found somewhere else. This week, while photographing these communities, I sometime felt that I was doing more a sculptural work than a photographic one... All these materials are fascinating me... Fur, bones. wooden masks... We'll see.
2010-02-09
I finally saw my show, for the first time today... Short school Haka is presented on the "project wall" of the Kunsthalle of Wien since June 2009 until the end of february.
2010-02-03
It's been more than ten years now... I met Estelle and Helene for the first time when they were 9 years old, in a School of Ballet. And since that, I've been doing their portraits, always in that way, season after season. Strange to discover after a few years that they were automatically standing always Estelle on the left and Helene on the right. Only once, they exchanged. They were 13. This series is not finished yet, and I still don't know what will be its issue. I have no plane for this. It's my vanité... It deals with our time going on so fast, our energy consuming and everytime I meet Estelle and Helene for a new portrait, it's like a break, a moment to think about what I've been doing. It's more a ritual than anything else. Ritual and photography go together like twins, I woudl say. Estelle and Helene will be 20 this year and I hope they'll invite me for their birthday this summer, if I'm not too old.
2010-01-05
Squeak is the dog n°6... the most beautiful, and the fastest... ssssqqquuueak... That must be the sound of a racing dog running. My first dog portraits, after the horses and poneys of the EMPIRE and LUX series. But this time, the animal is the only character of the image... a dog in uniform, with a clear and defined function. Empathy is somewhere else.
2009-12-10
The EMPIRE story has been a long one... from the moment I photographed the Royal Horse guards in London to the printing of the Empire book. The book is printed and should be soon in the bookshops. I expected it earlier but the new printing with the Italian version made us wait a bit longer. Three languages, with some of the best publishers in Europe... I'm pretty happy about that. I now need to be able to focus myself on my new project. I already started and never had the chance to put any new images online. After the very elegant Empire, and the maniac Opera, I'm now workng on something more fundamental, wild... something dealing with primitivism... paganism. Wait and see.
2009-07-10
From both sides, there's some influences. I may use fashion into my photographic work as fashion may use my images as a source of inspiration. With Felipe Oliveira Baptisa, we found many of these crossroads, from my Notre Dame series, my 2 Nelson images or recently, the Majorettes series. The project of a collaboration is now opened.
www.levif.be/weekend/fr/mode/news/articles/a14997-article.jsp#articleContainer
2009-07-07
The short school Haka series, at the Kunsthalle, Wien, Austria.
2009-06-26
Back from New Zealand...Manawatu area, I stayed 12 days in a Maori college for boys. From 12 to 17 years old, these kids receive a strong maori education to become Maori leaders. They learn Haka, play rugby, pray the god in maori. Their "short school Haka" is the subject of my last research their. We're all used to see the famous "Ka mate" Haka of the All Black (without really knowing its meaning and its controversial use my the All blacks). The Haka is not only a war dance, it's also a ritual for every important moment of the maori life. And the "Short school" Haka of the Hato Paora school is telling about their wish to make it good: "Eke, eke hara mai te toki.Tena hui e, tena hui e" (Let us rise, let us grow, and be passionate). The "Short school Haka" series will be shown at the Museum of contemporary Art of Wien (Kunsthalle) from the 3rd of July.
2009-05-25
No, I'm not dead. I just transformed myself for a little while. This is from a studio session in Shanghai after I went to the Nang Jing Opera. Here's my LU QIAN REN costume, the one designed last year with the same purple-black-white-yellow and silver of the guard uniform. The LU QIAN REN performance, also titled "the purple bridge", is a combination of 7 poses made in a sort of choreography. This will take place in different exhibitions during the next two years, in Tapei, Beijing and Shanghai... The "Gardes" performance and the "Purple bridge" are like a pair...dealing with a similar attitude and this unbreakable wish to get into the circle. This performance project is really going together with my photographic work now but its organization is quite different. I need to work with a team, someone to film, someone to photograph, a choregrapher, a close collaboration with tailors and specialists... This picture has been made with the assistance of Rosa Chen, photographer based in Shanghai and retouched in the very traditional style of the Chinese Cosplayer "The Hope"... I will be back in China this year for the perfomance and also a workshop at the Academy of Art of Hanghzou... Back to my pure photographic projects too... I'll travelling next month for a new project.
2009-03-02
Back from Brazil, back from the carnival of Poços de Caldas... I'm still a bit somewhere in between after this. Playing with the identities sounds like a game and a sacrifice somehow. I will start to work on a text about the experience and a book project about the fantasias. I now have the material to do it.
2009-01-13
I started my "Portraits photographiques et uniformes" in 1998, in my hometown when a ship from the French navy stopped here for a week-end, in the port of Rouen. I went to talk with the captain and asked for the permission to do the portrait of the crew. Then, I started. My first portraits looking like what I'm still doing are from January 1999, with the first series about the synchronize ice skatters (not the "Steps" series, another one), my first "majorettes", some football supporters, some student of military academies, these mormonts... I decided to work this year on a new selection of the entire body of my "Portraits photographiques et uniformes". I will scan my selection again (most of the scanned files on this website are really bad in colors and details). The idea is to take some time to watch my images from a different angle to define a global selection. This would be the base for an exhibition involving all my series from 1999 till now... from the plumes of my first majorettes, to the plumes of my brazilian fantasias series.
2008-12-11
Dennis Hopper, having a exhibition in Paris at the moment including his paintings, films, photographs... HE'S GOOD. This picture was printed in "The Observer"(UK) last month.
2008-12-11
The portfolio keeps being for me the most appropriated way to show my photographic work. The idea of showing different series, (sometime, 12 or 14 series in the same room) makes more sense than sometime being able to show only one set of images. My work has definitively to do with this accumulation of portraits. In 2009, I've also had the chance to push the experimentation in my exhibition by showing in the same place some portfolios (20 x 25 cm) and 3 others different size of images (till 120 x 150 cm) . The result is more efficient, with certain images shown as icons in the middle of the series. The feeling of the individual identity in the group is clearly pushed in that way. This picture is from the show at the Atelier Devisu in Marseille. It's also important to show the box of the portfolio and the title pages in the exhibition. It really means that the images are supposed to stay together and come from a portfolio.
2008-12-11
These three images are dealing with my Vis voluntatis project. The two scenes almost happened at the same time... in Brazil and in China. I'm now organizing the two chapters of Vis voluntatis, with the creation of two prototypes of costumes. The first costume project is a "destaque" (the most important fantasias of the Brazilian carnival). I will take part of the carnival in Poços de Caldas with my own "destaque". The second costume is the prototype for a character which could take part of the Chinese Opera. I'm collaborating with Frank Fan, an ex-actor of the Opera of Shanghai helping me to create a choreography of 49 Chinese soldiers wearing this costume. Without really expecting it, the performance became one of the mediums I'm now using combined with my photographic research. It's definitively a way to push further, to get myself into this "wish to be" which 's been always fascinated me in all the communities. And the interaction with these communities get stronger and stronger.
2008-12-11
Just one of the fantasias of my last series in Brazil...
2008-10-30
Poços de Caldas, Minas Gerais, Brasil. Invited by Marcus Togni, president of the "ligua das escolas de samba", I´ve been working since monday in the Saci-pô, samba school. I decided to focus my attention on the particular phenomenon of the fantasias (in particularm the 'destaques' which are usually the enormous costumes you can see on the trucks during the carnival in january). Poços de Caldas is somehow famous thanks to these amazing fantasias, no limit costumes with a big touch of kitch and surrealism: Designing a fantasia needs a strong instinct and not much concept. After this series of portraits of members of the samba school in these fantasias, I will start to design my own fantasia which will be produced before january by the workshop of the school. Following the Vis voluntatis project with the purple guards and the Bi yan series with the Chinese Opera, my fantasias will be the third chapter of this vis voluntatis project... I can tell in advance that my fantasia will be also in purple, black, yellow and white, with the medusa as the main character... vis voluntatis, eo solus intra circulum.
2008-09-22
I met the Finnish writer during my 4th trip to Finland when I was working with the finnish navy on the Merisotakoulu series (see in the series). Rosa Liksom wrote the text of my STEPS book in 2002 too. Staying in her place in Helsinki, in the middle of her russian toys collection gave us the idea of a new collaboration around these toys. We talked about a story and made the choice of the toys which could be our characters. And then, I went with two assistants on the frozen ice of the sea to photograph the whole story, with my flashlight and so on. It was -35 degrees celcius... and I remember we had to bring 30 kg of ice cubes in a big bag on the sea... Thinking about it, I'm still freezing. The publisher Tammi decided to finish this book with us... A great conclusion!
www.tammi.fi/kirjat/ISBN/9789513141363/alue/906,907,912,956/navi/Uutuudet/
2008-09-22
Our Vis voluntatis performance in Brussels, at the Galerie Les filles du calvaire... Leo Favier and Wouter Schuddebeurs, standing at the entrance last saturday. Today, Wouter told me he felt "proud, feeling better than other people" and that he "would have loved to hold some people from going in"... That's still a real big experience for us, with its dressing protocole and this attitude we are standing for. This morning I received the registration certificate of the "Fréger Tartan"...
2008-09-11
I'm still with my Portraits photogaphiques et Uniformes, no doubt. Here's my last series, made in Northern Ireland, this summer. After a few years of discussion, I've finally been invited to visit the orange lodges of Belfast. That's quite a complex story which needs to be seen also out of the usual Catholic/protestant antagonism. I've visited these lodges and followed the Orange parade in Belfast, the 12th of July. My series is divided in two chapters: THE LODGE, from where the parade is starting, and THE FIELD, where the parade is stopping. The series will be online next week. I was waiting to photograph this since I started to be a photographer. Done!
2008-09-08
After a few months of experimentation around this uniform, I think the work around the Vis voluntatis project is done. I've finally photographed 9 purple guards in the uniform. We'll show again the performance in Brussels, the 20th, at the Filles du calvaire gallery. The next step is now the creation of a purple drummer... I'm working on it!
2008-08-20
3 view of my show at the MEM gallery in Osaka. The Seijinshiki portfolio (9 images) is displayed framed on the walls.
2008-07-22
Opening of the EMPIRE exhibition at the "Rencontres d'Arles", curated by Christian Lacroix (on the picture). It gave us the chance to show for the second time our Vis voluntatis performance, with our purple guards. After the “Parcours St Germain” in Paris, we worked again on the costumes, and focused on the attitude of the guards posing, as a performance, hyper-static. Doing this in the context of the Empire series made sense and I will do it again for the show at the Galerie Filles du Calvaire in Brussels (Belgium) the 20th of September. I'll show the Empire series, the Hereros and the Seijinshiki series. I now work on a larger exhibition, combining my whole "Portraits photographiques et uniformes" project since 1999. That will be the next step.
2008-05-30
Image of the first "Vis voluntatis" happening last night. It's been a great experience. I'll add more images of the happening soon, and a video too.
2008-05-26
A me la guardia. This next thursday, I'll do my first performance for the "Parcours St Germain" festival in Paris. You can get some infos on the website of the festival. The guards are ready... More infos later.
www.parcoursaintgermain.com
2008-04-16
The new show at Galerie Nouvelles Images. The very big 成人式 Seijinshiki prints are shown in a room. The Hereros portfolio is displayed too. I think it's a good combination giving two directions in my work.
2008-03-10
I'm not in China now. But I'm working on my "Bi Yan" project. I did not expect this to be so complex. The "Bi Yan" series is about the wish to be inside a group, and more than that: to be able to use the codes and the fundamental language of a group, by exploring it, by twisting it. But it's not a piece of cake. I started to work with the Chinese opera makeup artists in November, and now, I'm creating my own character for an hypothetic Chinese Opera. His name is Lu Qian Ren... The starting point was to write the story of Lu Qian Ren, as a credible historical story of the Chinese opera happening during the turbulent era from 304 to 439 known in history as the Period of Sixteen Kingdoms... On this picture, I try to make it like Gwan Yu, one of the most famous characters of the opera. Maybe that looks ridiculous but the wish to make it is stronger than the result itself. The result is and has to be obviously a failure, or it would just be some poor exoticism.
2008-02-22
ARCO, the Madrid Artfair, Kicken Gallery.
2008-02-01
Back from Shanghai after the opening of the "Unseen" Show at the MOCA Shanghai. I now work on my Chinese Opera project in Shanghai, as a third step. First I did this series of portraits in Beijing in 2005 and 2007. Then, I've worked with the make up artists of one of the Chinese Opera school in Beijing (to produce the Bi Yan collage). And now, I work with a choregrapher and several costume makers about my new project including the creation of costumes, a performance project... Coming soon
2008-02-01
12 portraits from 12 series... From Water polo (2000) to the Black Watch (2006).
2007-12-07
Professor Wang, specialist of the "limited division" make up is painting my face, with that pink man face. It's actually the make up which somehow stick to myself. I've spent one week with Professor Gia and Professor Wang, painted everyday... all together 26 characters landed on my face, on my one... it was chaotic of course, a kind of game between my identity of this complexe community. I've made that decision of walking that line, to interact with the communities I photograph much more; Cause, yes, there's the "Opera" series picture made with the Chinese Opera too. And it could have been enough. But I felt I wanted to push it further. I did, pushing myself in sometime a ridiculous situation... me dressed like chinese opera women...an elephant in a porcelaine shop! And now, I'm starting a third chapter with the chinese opera, more based on the concept of happening. VIS VOLUNTATIS, EO SOLUS INTRA CIRCULUM. This motto is now mine. Desire, I get alone into the cercle. The field of photography is not enough for me now, not at all.
2007-12-06
Online these next days, the "Hereros" series made in Namibia in August. The hereros and the himbas (series online soon too) are from the same population but separated during the colonisation by the German Empire. From that time, Hereros worked with the German while himbas and buchmen stayed in the nature. The hereros started to dress up like the Germans. In 1905, the herero population started to resist against the Germans and this finished by the sad battle of Wattenberg. After this, the Germans decided to get rid of the herero population, massively. All this finished by the first Genocide of the century. From around 200 000 people, only 15000 survived. 100 years later, the herero community organizes every year in Okahandja a festival, kind of tribal festival where a big part of the herero population is meeting for a large commemoration with tribal dance and tonnes of meat and alcohol. The most amazing part is the way they dress up, under this red flag, looking like German soldier, or sometime influenced by the Black Panther movement. It’s a kind of chaotic mix between the Amin Dada icons (and its Scottish-like army), black power, colonialisms and tribal uniforms.
2007-10-19
It has to start with a very clear idea, a conviction: You can't be someone else. Doing this in the context of a himba tribe in the kaokoland area was more than symbolic, as a starting point of this new reseach. Being part of a group is complexe. I've stayed out of the cercle, somehow, beeing the outsider of all these groups... But now, I wanna try to get inside the cercle, to get this on my skin. And from the start, I know it won't work, and that's just great.
2007-10-03
This is the portrait of Michel and Sebastien Bras (Laguiole). It was commissioned by Next (the saturday extra of the Liberation Newspaper in France). I've done the portraits of 11 famous cooks, the best cooks of the country, la creme de la creme. I loved some of these meetings. I've been always fascinated by this french ideal around Cooking. Actually, I had a doubt about the idea of beeing a painter when I was 22. Reading Gilles Deleuze, the french philosopher, and his theory about Desir, I started to feel that learning to be a painter could not come only from painting, its history and technic. It could and it had to come from a much larger field of experimentation. Look at Rembrandt! Look at Gauguin! Is painting only based on painting?! Cooking became one of these fundamental inspirations for me. Thinking that a good artist should be able to make a good Mayonnaise, for sure! It's all about that actually. The best Cooks are artists (Look at Michel Bras cutting the meat, it's very close to Fontana cutting a canvas, seriously!), and it definitively makes sense when one imagine the diversity of their influences and the enormous field of experiences around this.
next.liberation.fr/html/gouts/goutschefs.html
2007-09-21
Fashion shooting for TETU, french magazine. I accepted, some years later, a very basic idea: If I shoot fashion, I absolutly expect to use all the established concepts of fashion (make up, stylism, hair dress, and professional models. I've started photography in the trendy athmospher of a more realistic fashion. We were invited to shoot fashion with "the real people"... going somewhere with a few stylish t-shirts, sport shoes and jackets and inviting the man of the street to be the model. Facing the pecimism of real fashion photographers at that time, I stopped doing commission for fashion magazine. I now collaborate with a french stylist and accept the whole project as a concept. And that's interesting, it's like sculpting, playing with unreal images, esthetism and so on.
2007-09-20
That was in May, near Copenhagen. I already photographed the grenadier regiment in 2004, but the Hussards impressed me too. I found it would be good to have this in the Empire Book. It will be out only in 2008, in two versions (an english one, and a french one).
2007-09-19
This is the portrait of the twin sisters Helene and Estelle in the majorette Uniform I designed for the film. They wear a yellow, black and white "lycra" outfit with two white birds on the front. In the film , they are supposed to take part of the "Antoinettes" group. Cinema is really a new experimentation field for me. We've been working on its preparation for almost two years already. And it will be a musical. It's on its way. Sodaperaga, a french film producer is supporting the project. A team is already working on it. It's the first time I really get inside a group, deciding to design a uniform, to create something using my photographic background as a documentation for my film. The "Bleus de travail" book, the "Majorettes, the "Steps", the "Donneurs" books really helped me to define my scenario. And the "Matière grise" series is also a very important base for my story.
2007-09-11
A prototype for my film project
2007-09-10
Here's the base of my Seijinshiki series...成人式 I photographed this in January in Osaka, Japan. But the second step of this project has been to create an artificial background to the 12 selected portraits. It's like if each of the young women would have been photographed in a studio, with one of these painted background. These images will be presented soon in Osaka and also in Brussel, at the Brussel Art fair, as a one man show. But what you see, finally, is not the definitive image. Each image is also the base of a collage. It's the first time, I work like this, and it's been a complete different organization, with a close collaboration with two graphic designers. Soon, the complete series will be online, with its collage.
2007-09-10
This is the first Seijinshiki test. Too big.
2007-07-02
This the portrait of Maurizio Galante, designer for the "NEXT" magazine (Liberation). Maurizio in a impressive fashion creator also an inspired fourniture and object designer. I'm a fan of the furnitures he created, especially Aura chair. This dimenson of objects become quit important in my work. A collaboration is going on with the CRAFT in Limoges (France) for the design of a series of cup. I also wish to produce a particular object taking part of the japanese series "Seijinshiki".
/www.maurizio-galante.com
2007-05-15
This is a view of a part of my solo exhibition at the Galerie Les filles du Calvaire, Paris.
2007-05-15
Last week in Amsterdam, Art Amsterdam, at the Rai. The Nouvelles Images gallery was presented a selection of Jasper De Beijer's work (POC member), Jean-Marc Spam's large images and 2 of my Opera images, in large size (120 x 157 cm) in white frames. The relationship with such a big portrait is totally different. Everything is somehow more spectacular, more about the details becoming enormous... The intimacy is disappearing and open the field to something more iconic, more monumental.
2007-04-17
I've just finished a series of portraits printed in seven times in the newspaper "Le Monde". The idea was to work on a selection of portraits of politic supporters in 7 different political partis before the election. This last picture was made at the meeting of the french national party last sunday. You can see all the portraits selected during the 7 shootings online
www.lemonde.fr/web/articleinteractif/0,41-0@2-823448,49-897729@45-3397,0.html
2007-03-22
This photo has been made three days ago by Guillaume Van Laethem and 11 other students in Photography at the Art Academy of Antwerp during workshop with me. The main discussions turned around the process of the photographic portrait. If you are a Flemish artist, how can you deal with portrait without knowing perfectly the specificities of the Flemish painting, the primitive one by Van Eyck, Van de Weyden, Petrus Christus? How can you find you find your own way without knowing about the hesitations of Mondrian? It's been the question coming back systematically on the workshop. It's almost impossible to start a creative process in photography without knowing about our cultural background, our artistic and historic environment... And the Flemish and Dutch photography, including the work of Celine Van Balen, Helen van Meene, Desiree Dolron, Rineke Dijkstra of course could not exist and being understood out of the context of the occidental painting. Could photography, then, exist without this picturesque background? My personal conviction is that my work is fundamentally based on painting and deal with the same representation questions. Some may say that a certain American photography is dealing with some other references, which are only photographic, like if photography would be the base of photography itself, with its own concepts and mythology. But I doubt that we could appreciate the photograph of a gas station by Stephen Shore without knowing of the ready-made "Fontaine" of Marcel Duchamp.
2007-03-22
A show going on in Antwerpen, curated by Bert Danckaert: SPEELTIJD (Playtime) is a collective exhibition organized in a high school, in the context of the classrooms, the corridors, the stages... Dirk Braeckman's photograph is above the photocopy machine, surrounded of paper stock... Rineke Dijkstra's portrait on a white board, my Water-polo and butchers are flat on tables. Some paintings of Karin Hanssen really work like an installation in the context. Out the work of each artist, the main research in my point of view is the amazing work by Bert Danckaert, his reflection about the environment in a very poetic way. The installations of our creations by Bert become his own artistic research and reach the best score: a A or a 20/20.
http://www.kab-blijft.org/speeltijd/
2007-03-06
I'm just back from Antwerpen... The 6th POC workshop (Piece of Cake) took place at the Photography Museum of the flemmish Capital. 15 members were there. My photographic work is also about that and extremly related to this network. We've created POC five years ago to really work together and to share our experiences... And it works. These words from Birgitta Lund (one of the latest POC member from Denmark) sound like a good conclusion of this workshop: "I'm a new member in POC but I felt very comfortable in the group and enjoyed the workshop a lot. I have the feeling of knowing everybody for a long time and not actualy just joining the group". The POC experience has been going on well, with its network, its workshops, its publishing house, its residences... We'll keep going
www.pocproject.com
2007-01-23
Osaka, Kyoto, Japan... This new series is a change in my photographic attitude... Seijinshiki and Purikura are the two names of the two new series I've been doing there. If you are a 20 years old student in Japan, you should take part tbe 8th of January of the Seijinshiki ceremony organized at the city hall of your home town. I've decided to photograph a series of 20 years old girls dressing the traditionnal flowerfull kimono of the Seijinshiki ceremony. From the University of Kyoto, the coordinator Tomomi Tada organized two shooting sessions (one in Osaka and one in Kyoto) including 60 models, 8 assistants, 9 fitters, a make up artist... The schedule was tight and the time limited....
2007-01-23
8 fitters in Kyoto, working by couple dressed up 34 girls... It was just impressive. A video have been made about the fitting which usually take 40 minutes for one girl with two professional fitters.
2007-01-23
The particularity of these two new series is about the attitude of the models doing the V sign with their fingers. this kind of stereotypic attitude made by many japanese young people when they photograph eachother... Some say the V sign is a celebration of life, something dealing with happiness. The others pretend this is related to the Japanese history...kind of "peace" sign dealing with Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Seijinshiki series is a traditional series, also if the attitude is slighty different. The Purikura is more complexe, opening the field of a new research about portraits, european "vanités"... The images will be modified (the background mainly) and some objects will be added on the pictures (like the young japanese do in the "Print Club"-Purikura- machine in the noisy game centers... I'll show more soon.
2007-01-22
Three lectures in Japan this month: One at the Osaka School of Art and Photography and two in Kyoto (Kyoto University of Art and Design). It was good to discuss like that. The last talk during a Symposium about Contemporary photography organized by Mr Goto (Editor and Art Critic well known for his impressive work onPhotography and Contemporary Art and his collaboration with Ruichi Sakamoto. My talk was a discussion with the great Photo my friend critic Mariko Takeuchi and Mr Goto. The conclusion of this meeting was dealing with some question around my experience about portraits and this idea of getting inside different particular uniform groups... and the idea that finally, the new step going on with my research was: Do I wish to be part of one of these groups? Do I have a desire toward such these groups? And the symbolic concept of beeing in the middle of the cercle of a sumo beya in Japan was showing clearly that my work is also about the desir of getting inside the group, deeper, to take part of it...Maybe after portraiting all these people, as an "encyclopedie", an accumulation, I somehow start to become who I'm photographying: "Watashi wa Rikishi ni Naritaï des"... I WANT TO BE A SUMO WRESTLER... I wish it.
2007-01-18
Portrait of Carla Bruni for the french magazine "Les Inrockuptibles.
www.lesinrocks.com
2006-12-21 read 1 comments
2007 coming soon... Yeap, and so much to do. I expect it as an experimental year (I bet it's fun to read this, especially when it's written by a photographer who seems to always shoot the same picture). Cinema, new series based on different technics, different points of view... a new book coming soon too (EMPIRE) and the first base of a generic research about the "portraits photographiques et uniformes" since I've started this in 1999.
2006-12-15
Was a strong experience... in a supermarket, at the border of France and Luxembourg, in Longwy... I was doing the portraits of the clients, pushing their trolley. I like these moments, they are intense for me. This article is in the french national newspaper "le monde" (see the website) of today. Made me happy.
www.lemonde.fr
2006-11-27 read 1 comments
Current exhibition at Galerie Nouvelles Images, Den Haag, Holland. 14 portfolios are presented flat on tables, introding the images of several series, from Water-polo to Empire. Then, it's possible to real have an overview of the "portraits photographiques et uniformes" project, since 2000.
2006-10-02 read 1 comments
A marching band, walking in the middle of an empty field... looks like a surrealist western, right? It will be the last image of the videoclip for the Rio Baril song of Florent Marchet (Universal music/barclay) SEE THE VIDEOCLIP ONLINE! on http://florentmarchet.artistes.universalmusic.fr/
florentmarchet.artistes.universalmusic.fr/
2006-08-30
I did it last week: The swiss guards of the Vatican (Guardia Svizzera Pontificia). It's one of the big chapter of my projects around the european guards. I stayed at the Vatican. It was amazing, peaceful and strange, the feeling of beeing in the middle of something BIG and small at the same time, a safe place. The legend about the uniform of the swiss guard (existing since 1506) tells that Michellangelo designed the purple, orange and red uniform. The real story is just that one of the guard in the early 20th, found his inspiration in some of the master's sketchs... It was great to photograph where Velasquez painted some centuries ago...
2006-08-30
The Regiment of the Black Watch is normally located in Scotland... I was supposed to photograph the Pipes and drums of the regiment but finally had a chance to visit it in Belfast, North Ireland where they will stay for two more years. I found the black watch regiment more than impressive, with a very brit style and a powerful attitude. Imagine these bagpipers, during the first world war, walking straight to the battle with a bagpipe for only weapon... That can be only impressive and somehow surrealist. But it works.
2006-08-17
A workshop at the Fatamargona school may finish like that... The interesting thing with that danish school of photography (where Morten Nilsson and Anders Petersen are teaching) is that the students seems to test themself a lot, to try to improve something... them as individual standing in the world, its complexity, its absurdity, its obscenity. This image looking more like the conclusion of a happening seems to be a joke and then, watching it longer, is not funny anymore (thinking of History). Rune Mandsbjerg, Johan Rosenmunthe, Flemming Ove Bech, Viktor Storjord, Valdemar Jørgensen are now working on a common project about freedom and photography... something to follow soon on their website...
www.fata.dk/
2006-08-12
I will be back to Guatemala soon to finish my project with the Itza' community. We expect to produce two books about the Itza'. One photographic book mainly based of portraits made in the Itza' community and one book based on some translations of Itza' text in Spanish and English. This project, leaded by the american/ french anthropologist Scott Atran (CNRS France, University of Michigan), the french/chilian linguist Ximena Lois and the french linguist Valentina Vapnarsky is part of a major research started in the Peten area in Guatemala in the early 80's. Valentina and Ximena almost produced an Itza' dictionnary and were then able to collect in the Itza' language some old stories told by the elders of the community... The Itza empire was the last one to resist to the spanish conquerors in the 17th century... They were three millions of inhabitants at that time... Now, they are a few hundreds. With this important research, the Itza' language is now almost saved. I photographed the last 30 elders of the community, able to talk the language (it was forbidden to talk the native languages during the dictature which almost killed the indian spirit) and to tell these original stories. Still, the situation is complicated and fragile... The young generation is more motivated by the new style of life and move to the city.
2006-07-06 read 1 comments
Opening last week-end at the MUDAM Luxembourg. Have a look at the website made by Claude Closky!
www.mudam.lu
2006-06-26
Glenbrook North Highschool, Illinois is the place where's I'm starting a new project in Chicago, with four typical american highschools. And I've started with an iconic one, the school where the John Hughes "Breakfast Club" with Molly Ringwald was filmed in 1985. Most of the french people don't remember the "Breakfast Club" film, when all americans do. It's like a start, one of the first teenager movies, maybe a little bit naive, but turning the camera, an introspection, in the teenagers mind... behind the stereotype of 4 characters representing somehow the socials classes of of the United State of America of the Ronald Reagan years. Of course, Larry Clark brang much more with "Kids", but still, Breakfast club made sense in its context.
2006-06-23
Ice Hockey, in my home town...
2006-06-22 read 1 comments
The ALONE TOGETHER show took place last week in Den Haag at the Nouvelles Images Gallery (here there work of Jasper De Beijer, Mathieu Bernard-Reymond, Stephen Hughes (it's small here, see their work on the POC website!)... first official POC show after almost 4 years of existence.
www.pocproject.com
2006-06-22
Eleven of the 22 members of POC were at the opening. The next meeting will probably be in Antwerpen, Belgium, in the end of 2006.
2006-06-12
And the twinsisters keep growing. This picture was taken in may at the Lycée Pierre Corneille, in Rouen.
2006-06-08
The LUX series is now on the walls of the new Museum of Modern Art of Luxembourg (MUDAM). The opening will be the 1st of July.
www.mudam.lu
2006-06-06
Exhibition in Chicago, Stephen Daiter Gallery, curated by Michael Welch and Stephen Daiter.
www.stephendaitergallery.com
2006-06-06
The selected images of this exhibition are on Stephen Daiter Gallery website.
2006-05-22 read 46 comments
Here are the Corazzieri, the republican guards of the italian president. Was a fantastic meeting, impressive uniform... each guard must be more than 1,90 meter... felt quit small.
2006-05-22
and in Roma too, the Carabinieri...
2006-05-22 read 1 comments
San Marino, two months ago... in the parliament of the 21000 citizens republic. On the beld of each gard, a litlle metallic "Gorgon's head", copy of the famous painting of Caravaggio... which became the symbol of my whole research about the "guards" series.
2006-05-20
I keep going on the HYERES project, commissioned by the Villa Noailles. I discovered myself enjoying flowers, and for the first time since 2002, I've worked on some pictures without flashlight... felt more fragile then, and less arogant! I'll shoot again there in July. The show about this project will take place in 2007, with a book and an exhibition. Portraits won't be the base of this project. It's a possible evolution.
2006-05-19
This is strange, isn'it? This is the room where the LUX series will be displayed the 1st of July at the Museum of Modern Art of Luxembourg... It's the smallest country where I've worked (with Singapore!) but it's the biggest series selected for an exhibition. I've produced 9 different series there, including "LUX soldats", "LUX nageurs", "LUX Ballets", "LUX jobs"... LUX is a demonstration about how a country is finally always made of a systematic set of communities... if not, it would not really be a country.
www.mudam.lu
2006-05-19
from the series LUX, two dancers photographed in Luxembourg in 2004 at the Jaga Antony School of Ballet.
2006-04-03
H.M Kongens Garde, Oslo, two weeks ago.
www.mil.no/haren/hmkg/start/article.jhtml?articleID=118699
2006-02-02
Escorte Royale de Belgique, Bruxelles. Lucky me!
2006-01-27
From the commission of the Villa Noailles, Hyères, France about the market gardener of the area.
2005-12-21
Two weeks ago, at the Miami Art fair, Kicken Gallery.
www.kicken-gallery.com
2005-12-16
Still on the Guards series... The Evzones are fantastic, with a surreal costum, a very complicated uniform they wear since 1829 after the victory against the turkish army. The protocole of the change of the guard is amazing. Next step: Italy.
2005-12-14
The twin sisters are still growing. I met them one month ago in a windy Rouen, near the swimming pool on the Lacroix island.
2005-12-11
Vive la France! First step of the research with the french "Garde républicaine". I'll photograph the cavalery in January
2005-12-05 read 838 comments
Just back from Kigali, Rwanda. I was working there for an ONG, for a photographic project whitch will be shown during the olympic games of Turin, Italy in 2006. I worked during a week with a group of children (Umwana) , all orphans, most of them HIV positive. The situation there still makes me trembling all over. The background and the politic situation sounds like a nightmare and doing a photographic series of portraits there can't be exactly based on the same system. There's some "pathos", the situation of the environement, the personal situation of each child makes the photographic project absolutly different, more psychologic, much more fragile and sensible. I did my best but I feel that the main problem for a photographer like me there is the post-colonialism. Let's say that it's complicated to make a series of portrait without thinking of the 19th century and its patronizing anthropological photographic project where the "nigger" was considered like an animal. I made a workshop with 15 teenagers there. They made their own portraits with my heavy equipment, had good fun. At the end of the workshop, they asked me where i was coming from. "Paris", I said. "Do you know what french did in our country?" they answered. Yes, I know.
2005-11-10 read 1 comments
Les carabiners du Prince de Monaco, last week.
2005-11-01
Goal!! Rainy Lisboa, but fantastic shooting. I stayed two days with Patricia Almeida (see online her site on www.pocproject.com) at the headquarter of the Guardia Guardia Nacional Republicana. Coming soon, the greek guards!
2005-10-04
The "Guards" project keeps going with. Last week, at white hall, I was shooting the portraits of the "Blues and Royal" guards, Scotguards and Irish guards. Last year, I already photographed the Grenadier in Wellington Barrack, and the liveguards in White hall. The next shooting will be in Paris in the Garde Republicaine.
2005-07-22
At the nouvelles Images gallery, a few weeks ago, with Jasper De Beijer and the 25 other artists represented by the Nouvelles Images gallery, meeting with Beatrix, Queen of Nederland. Was also a fantastic meeting with Jasper De Beijer (see his site online) who became a POC member in June (www.pocproject.com)
2005-07-21
Just back from the North... Still a royal time! Shooting of the "Grande Escorte Royale" in Brussel, Belgium...
2005-05-26
I'm really thinking of my Water-polo series... Water-Polo was made in a real rush. Each swimmer was just running to the dressing room, one minute, just the time to watch the camera... Water was still running on the skin, twelve tired boys, stressed and wondering how to behave in front of the camera. Yesterday, in the North of France, these parameters came suddenly back in a team of Mixt-Rugby. 18 boys and girls, wearing a rugby helmet looking like the water-polo one, same attitude, same stress, same questions running in the head... and still.
2005-05-26
There's a big common point between this image and the Double Nelson series about french wrestler... all these sports were bodies create together a unity, and once can find the same state of things in the way that a group of legionnaires are working together... In french, we talk about "un corps d'armée"... meaning that all the bodies together are finally only once, stronger and united. Still if it's fake and somehow synthetic, this feeling do really exists. In the Double Nelson book, Bill Kowenhoven wrote: "The interaction of wrestlers' bodies, their fused proximity and manoeuverings, seems to create a new species of thick-bodies, two headed quadrupeds": This time, it's 16.
2005-05-26
Estelle and Helene are still growing. I met them in 1999, in a dancing school, they were learning to be this kind of ballet dancers... and finally stopped when they were 10. They're now 14. Sometime Estelle looks like Helene, sometime Helene looks like Estelle... They are so different, they attitude toward the word is totally different. I photographed them more than 12 times. Estelle and Helene have never been from this kind of family where mum try to make the twins looking the same, wearing the same jacket at school... And always, they've tried to be as different as possible, to be unique and independant. And still, they always stay together, whitch make sense.
2005-05-02
Here's a new project... something I'll purchase for several years: Every year in Orleans, a new "Jeanne d'Arc", symbole and fundamental myth of the french society, is elected by the comitee of the city of Orleans, in the center of France. This young woman is supposed to be a positive example for the other teenagers of her generation: a good way of life, healthy, good behaviour, good customs. This Jeanne d'Arc is a non politic one, belonging to the long tradition of french popular event. Next one next year
www.ville-orleans.fr/html/fr/fetesjeanne.html
2005-04-30
Was a good opening at the Moving gallery/spazy multipli last thursday... It was my first exhibition in Roma. My last projects in Italy were the Palio series in 2002-2003, commissioned by the city council of Ferrara... and a shooting with a football team of milanian strong women... So, this Rikishi exhibition is a good start for a new kind of collaboration with Ilaria Marotta and Memi Crimi Borromeo d'Adda of the Moving Gallery.
2005-04-26
Beijing made me a strange impression...Here's one of the images of the "Opera" series made at the middle school of the Opera of Beijing. Actually, the Opera is like the expected postcard of Beijing, something dealing with traditions, with a certain respect of rules, something also politic...
2005-04-26
this background is older than my dad... used by the Opera for the shows abroad or all over china... since the 50's. Maybe the first time I work on a so colorful series...
2005-04-26
2005-04-04
Vietnam, Buddhist monk
2005-03-24
What could I do with fashion? Well, I try to think about it. I now start a collaboration with Alexandre Sauvageot, french fashion designer, to create a series of uniform... Will give some results soon?
2005-03-23
Last week in Stockholm... Royal guards.
2005-03-21 read 1 comments
The Exhibition at the Fine Art Museum of Clermont-Ferrand was a good opportunity for me to show 3 series combining the idea of the question of the body in the community... In french, we talk about "un corps d'armée", meaning that the group of soldier of the foreign legion constitute a real body... Each body of soldier being a part of this collective body... Two wreslters fighting sometime create that similar effect... becoming a strange animal moving... Each sumo wrestler is also a member of his community (Heya): The transformation of his body, being bigger and bigger is also the result of this collective effect. Being a member of that kind of group needs a total involvement of the person, and the modification of his visual aspect, threw the evolution of the body.
2005-03-14
I stayed a few months without really watching the FILM SAFE images... Was a bit bitter after the X-ray accident at the Tel-Aviv Airport... whitch teach me to never trust anymore the one telling you like a robot "film safe"... So, here's one of the 9 portraits I finally saved. Who knows a little bit about the Fayoum portraits of Egyptia, will understand my feeling...
2005-03-14 read 1 comments
I've never had the opportunity to show to anybody this image made by Noriko Ehara during one of my Rikishi shooting. It was early in the morning, in 2002, during my second trip to Tokyo...After some long negociation, we found an agreement to get the permission to shoot a series in one of these heya... Being inside the sacred cercle was of course the only way for me to get a chance to really obtain an interesting portrait... Me inside - the rikishi somehow outside - Then, I've had the feeling I was a bit less the outsider, also if it was an illusion.
2005-03-12
The "Livguards" of Denmark represent the second chapter of my research about Royal Guards in Europe, after the famous Grenadiers of her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain and the amazing Horse guards at White Hall near Buckingham Palace and after the strange spainish Guardia civile. Shooting the guards is always a wonderful moment, because of the strong symbol they have to deal with, and because maybe this anachronic feeling... In front me, they try to stand proudly under their gigantic bearskin cap... This thursday, I'll shoot the LivGuards of Sweden, before the Norvegian one... and progressively, all the Royal Guards of Europes...
2005-03-07 read 1 comments
Did it! Came back the 4th... Here's one of the first images scanned of this project... I've some portraits in 3 Buddhist Pagodas and 2 Monks schools in Hue, center of Vietnam... and came back with an enormous research whitch will need a long time to be organized... All the symbols, all the elements of the pictures really change the point of view and there's a long way before getting the real balance of the series. I'll discover more soon... This is the first one. CF loves Caravagio