Just went to the Tania Mouraud opening at Dominque Fiat. Mouraud seems to have done some interesting installations in the past, but this show just seems ludicrous to me. A dozen (inevitably, predictably) large prints of 'landscapes' created by taking pictures of bales of hay wrapped in plastic. The invitation even has a picture of her taking these things standing in a field in her hiking boots. Not only is this not really an 'idea', let alone a 'concept' these feel like she took them all in one Sunday afternoon last time she went down to her country house with the kids. From the press release (my translation): "For her, the Borderland series is also based around the idea of using an ordinary, everyday agricultural tool and "Make Art" with that which escapes us." Bales of hay do not escape anyone. They are immobile. Please do not "Make Art" with them.
I first came across Denis Darzacq's work last year with his series La Chute. For this series Darzacq worked with dancers from troubled neighbourhoods in the Paris suburbs, capturing their bodies suspended in mid-air against the grim urban landscapes of their quartiers. The series reminds me of the seminal film on the Paris 'banlieues' (suburban ghettos), Matthieu Kassovitz's 1995 film, La Haine, which film famously ends with the words, "L'important c'est pas la chute, c'est l'aterrissage" (It's not the fall that counts, it's the landing). La Haine was a fictional study of the escalating crime and violence that was threatening to set many of Paris's suburbs alight: a high-velocity fall that was sooner or later going to a lead to a painful and explosive landing.
Over 10 years later, it looks like not much has changed and that many of these areas are still in free-fall. But Darzacq's images are a far cry from La Haine's gritty black and white aesthetic. The young dancers' bodies are captured in graceful and oddly fragile poses, frozen in mid-fall. And while these cityscapes aren't exactly inviting, there is a certain graphic beauty in these compositions. I think Darzacq's the basic technique for La Chute is a really simple and intelligent use of photography's ability to show us the invisible. I liked these even more when I found out that they were shot on film without any involvement from Photoshop. I haven't seen the prints, but it sounds like they don't disappoint.
I also suggest checking out the more recent series Hyper, where Darzacq captures these teenage bodies floating through the overlit hypercolour landscapes of France's hypermarchés. There is also a short film that gives an interesting insight into the process of making these images without spoiling the magic.
Last night I made two discoveries within the Parisian photography world. A friend tipped me off to a vernissage around the corner from my place, so there really was no excuse not to take the five minute detour. Alexei Riboud, the son of the French photographer Marc Riboud, was showing his Durban Transit series at the new Pascaline Mulliez gallery. I found that the images got lost between a sense of the photographer stalking his subject and a certain confusion, as Riboud plays with scale and perspective, cutting out the horizon and giving those images a certain rushed, raw edge. Although his large colour prints do convey a certain insomniac restlestness amidst the eerie hues of the shipyard lights, unfortunately they made less of an impression than the space itself which is in the Cité Griset, a highly unusual block of vast artist studios that feels a lot more like New York's Chelsea than it does Paris. I look forward to seeing what is next in store here.
Just went to the Tania Mouraud opening at Dominque Fiat. Mouraud seems to have done some interesting installations in the past, but this show just seems ludicrous to me. A dozen (inevitably, predictably) large prints of 'landscapes' created by taking pictures of bales of hay wrapped in plastic. The invitation even has a picture of her taking these things standing in a field in her hiking boots. Not only is this not really an 'idea', let alone a 'concept' these feel like she took them all in one Sunday afternoon last time she went down to her country house with the kids. From the press release (my translation): "For her, the Borderland series is also based around the idea of using an ordinary, everyday agricultural tool and "Make Art" with that which escapes us." Bales of hay do not escape anyone. They are immobile. Please do not "Make Art" with them.
