News

Portrait of Maurizio Galante

2 July 2007

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”.

Art Amsterdam

15 May 2007

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.

Guillaume Van Laethem

22 March 2007

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? Read more…

SPEELTIJD

22 March 2007

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.

Just back from Antwerpen

6 March 2007

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.

Osaka, Kyoto, Japan…

23 January 2007

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….

It was just impressive

23 January 2007

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.

Peace

23 January 2007

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.