CRASH

the golden child

I just love this Picture Mies took with his iphone before removing the protective film. You just can't beat an accident.

The magic

                                        

                                            Soeur Yvonne- Marseille- 1990

                                    
                                            Street musician- Marseille- 1990

A few months ago, I bought a scanner, a Canoscan 8800F. I then repatriated all of my early negatives

back from France, some of them having no contact sheets, I began scanning and retracing recurrent themes in my practice, as well as the intrinsic evolution brought by different equipment,  skills and editing in regard of the ever changing contexts. Some photographs were very vivid in my memory, I considered them key examples of what I wanted to show; not because of their iconography, or composition but because they carried some emotions which, aged 19 I did not know how to express. It was for me the realisation that magic was at work in the photographic process like in no other pictorial means. Mostly,photography seems to be echoing the raw energy of the music I listened to, the same instantaneity,the same power to constantly regenerate itself without having to establish a pompous statement. Those blurred images had the heaviness of a bass line, ripped of details, the impact was  direct. Blur photography became mainstream around 1985, it permeated from art and fashion into advertising and through daring young picture editors, to documentary; thus giving out of focus and blurred photographs the credibility to become the showcase for the postmodernist era. Music had been leading the way for moody teenagers, with band like Suicide, Joy Division , My Bloody Valentine, and  what would then be tagged as lo-fi and slow-prog(ressive); Galaxy 500 and Codeine were the epitome of slow motion and late night tale and inspired me to create many blurs and"true black" in my photographs.

Recently, I have heard some reminiscence in german and canadian electronic music, and new "it" band

the XX are definitely on the dark side of the moon; and with the people at The Impossible Project ready for the relaunch of instant Polaroid film, I'm quite certain that we will soon see a return to blurred, grainy pictures which should give photography students some freedom to experiment with the medium instead of calibrating their monitors.

I have had a tremendous afternoon in my living room. There's no need to retouch.I took a picture of all my cameras;well, I forgot one, a Zeiss Ikon.

                             

Wardour Street. Sand,cement,paper,zing and time.110x70.

cactus

I have had my eyes on these cactus for about 10 years.They proudly stand on the windowsills of a basement flat in the neighborhood. As I was snapping away, I was hopping for a hand to draw one of the nets and for a face to appear; who was dedicated to these plants? man or woman? how old? what kind of clothes was a person who'd display a Shaggy flowerpot wearing ? I imagined pale blue eyes, wrinkly hands

                                                    

My first bought book this year will remind myself to remember how much Japanese graphic design has influenced me and how graphic photography was in the 70s. This book is proof of it. Although printed in Singapore(well...), the quality of the paper (cover included) is not impressive and the subject would have deserved better quality reproductions, but the japanese production and design gives it the feel of one of the most desirable book coming my way. there's a very informative post in ModernArtObsession dated 15 october about photography books and japanese photography.

Graphic photography...Graphic photography...Graphic photography...??...!...?

-Japanese photobooks of the 1960s and 1970s by Ryuichi Kaneko and Ivan Vartanian for Goliga Books

published by Aperture

http://modernartobsession.blogs.com/modern_art_obsession/2009/10/collecting-photobook-story-in-this-weekends-london-financial-times.html

black holes

I was just about to post a note on Elinor Carucci's show at James Hyman Gallery when I read -Hey! look at me on (notes on) politics, theory & photography and was turned cold turkey by Jim Johnson's critic of her narcissist approach. Nothing is never simple and the view of a highly intelligent social anthropologist can be a black hole. While this review won't put me off going to see Elinor's show,  I am sure to follow (notes on) politics, theory and photography if only to stop myself from posting too many pictures of my daughter or grand-father.

I am also looking forward to the William Eggleston exhibition at Victoria Miro gallery starting on 15/01/10. Thanks to Juergen Teller (I will come back on him later) and my friend David, I have developed a bit of an obsession on Eggleston lately, so it will be good to see some recent work as I was not very impressed by the catalogue of his Paris exhibition at the Fondation Cartier last year. It stopped me from having any regret that I didn't make it in time to Paris for the show. ( but I sure did not miss the George Condo's show at the Musee Maillol!)

Alpes de Haute Provence

politicstheoryphotography.blogspot.com

www.jameshymangallery.com

Hit the road Jack

Only fools don't change - watching The Simpsons movie, the bit were Springfield is about to be sealed under a glass dome and a guy standing at the edge is panicking and screaming:   -"IN OR OUT…IN OR OUT…IN OR OUT…WHAT DO I DO...?..." end up crashed by the rim of the descending dome, made me realise that indecision is a curse. I will win this war!