Versus Dystopia
Read the text | Diaporama | Back to gallery
Set of 19 photographs.
Sizes and process:
Set of silver color photographs in medium format (120 film size).
H 39 X L 39 inches. Giclee process on HahnemühlePhotoRag Baryta 315gr Fine Art paper
mounted on museum aluminum Dibond, fitted with an aluminium chassis.
Limited edition of 5.
Price: € 3,600 incl. More information.
Set of silver color photographs in medium format (6X6).
H 16 X L 16 inches. Giclee process on Hahnemühle PhotoRag Baryta 315gr Fine Art paper mounted on museum aluminum Dibond, American box frame, H 16,5 X L 16,5 inches.
Limited edition of 5.
Price: € 1,500 incl. More information.
Versus Dystopia or the Poetics of Uncertainty, is a research on Men and faith.
It opposes the idea of a counter-utopia. It nourishes the hope that when something serious, something that defies understanding happens, Man* rises to a higher form of humanity and awakens to the sublime reality of solidarity.
Philisophy teaches that when habits can no longer continue, one must follow a path of extraordinary behaviour. In Chinese philosophy, one has to "cross the great river", confront uncertain waters to reach new shores. I often like to believe that uncertainty is what makes us the most human, humbly human.
Dystopia depicts an imaginary society, a society organised in such a way as to prevent its members from achieving happiness. To the point of becoming a utopia that turns into a nightmare. The current trend is to endlessly repeat that the world is ill, that our planet is dying, that our civilisation is decadent, that humans are cowards or worse, traitors. I felt that it was important to create Versus Dystopia.
Water has always been essential in my photographic work. Since Esquives (2002-2003) and Nocturnes (2007), I have never ceased finding my various heroes flooded, submerged, floating or drowned inside wet landscapes, marshes, lakes and rivers, the title itself of my series Mem (2009) represents in its Hebrew meaning both gushing and underground waters.
Once again, in Versus Dystopia, I lead the spectator towards water, towards my adopted land, where I photograph the marshland dawns, between Arles and the Camargue. During the few minutes of sunrise, between the lake of Vaccarès, salt marshes, the beach of Piémanson, rice fields, mossy arlesian railtracks, dismantling plant. I catch the fragility of a place, of a light, of an ephemeral colour. Dawn offers us a poetics of uncertainty.
I spent months searching for my heroes, to cast them as new martyrs. I found in Michel Rostain and Sebastien Abot, one a writer, the other a painter, embodiments of a gleaner and a prophet who walk together, rise together, help each other or meet again. I imagined them and photographed them in the poses of a St. Christopher of the Venetian school, a Sisyphus of Titian, a Pieta of William Bouguereau etc.
These two men have in turn embodied the heroes of a contemporary history, without ever meeting during the shoots, since each photograph is totally reconstructed as a photomontage. As in art books, I also extracted from each representation, a detail, that becomes itself an image which constitutes Versus Dystopia part II.
Models : Michel Rostain (writer) et Sébastien Abbot (painter).
* "Man" is used, not in a restrictive manner, but as the ancient shortcut for "Humanity".
Versus Dystopia
Read the text | Back to gallery
Set of 19 photographs.
Sizes and process:
Set of silver color photographs in medium format (120 film size).
H 39 X L 39 inches. Giclee process on HahnemühlePhotoRag Baryta 315gr Fine Art paper
mounted on museum aluminum Dibond, fitted with an aluminium chassis.
Limited edition of 5.
Price: € 3,600 incl. More information.
Set of silver color photographs in medium format (6X6).
H 16 X L 16 inches. Giclee process on Hahnemühle PhotoRag Baryta 315gr Fine Art paper mounted on museum aluminum Dibond, American box frame, H 16,5 X L 16,5 inches.
Limited edition of 5.
Price: € 1,500 incl. More information.
Versus Dystopia or the Poetics of Uncertainty, is a research on Men and faith.
It opposes the idea of a counter-utopia. It nourishes the hope that when something serious, something that defies understanding happens, Man* rises to a higher form of humanity and awakens to the sublime reality of solidarity.
Philisophy teaches that when habits can no longer continue, one must follow a path of extraordinary behaviour. In Chinese philosophy, one has to "cross the great river", confront uncertain waters to reach new shores. I often like to believe that uncertainty is what makes us the most human, humbly human.
Dystopia depicts an imaginary society, a society organised in such a way as to prevent its members from achieving happiness. To the point of becoming a utopia that turns into a nightmare. The current trend is to endlessly repeat that the world is ill, that our planet is dying, that our civilisation is decadent, that humans are cowards or worse, traitors. I felt that it was important to create Versus Dystopia.
Water has always been essential in my photographic work. Since Esquives (2002-2003) and Nocturnes (2007), I have never ceased finding my various heroes flooded, submerged, floating or drowned inside wet landscapes, marshes, lakes and rivers, the title itself of my series Mem (2009) represents in its Hebrew meaning both gushing and underground waters.
Once again, in Versus Dystopia, I lead the spectator towards water, towards my adopted land, where I photograph the marshland dawns, between Arles and the Camargue. During the few minutes of sunrise, between the lake of Vaccarès, salt marshes, the beach of Piémanson, rice fields, mossy arlesian railtracks, dismantling plant. I catch the fragility of a place, of a light, of an ephemeral colour. Dawn offers us a poetics of uncertainty.
I spent months searching for my heroes, to cast them as new martyrs. I found in Michel Rostain and Sebastien Abot, one a writer, the other a painter, embodiments of a gleaner and a prophet who walk together, rise together, help each other or meet again. I imagined them and photographed them in the poses of a St. Christopher of the Venetian school, a Sisyphus of Titian, a Pieta of William Bouguereau etc.
These two men have in turn embodied the heroes of a contemporary history, without ever meeting during the shoots, since each photograph is totally reconstructed as a photomontage. As in art books, I also extracted from each representation, a detail, that becomes itself an image which constitutes Versus Dystopia part II.
Models : Michel Rostain (writer) et Sébastien Abbot (painter).
* "Man" is used, not in a restrictive manner, but as the ancient shortcut for "Humanity".
