EXPOSITION - NOUVELLES ACQUISITIONS PHOTOGRAPHIQUES 3

As part of the Year of Photography (May 24-May 25), works by Jean-Luc Tartarin and Laurence Demaison are presented in the Graphic Arts room.

Jean-Luc Tartarin, "Trees
Combining commercial and personal practice, Jean-Luc Tartarin developed a body of work far removed from training and centers of institutional recognition, whose maturity and singularity were noticed as early as 1971. At just 20, Jean-Luc Tartarin was awarded the Prix Niépce.

Jean-Luc Tartarin's photographic practice focuses on capturing the essence of things, whether they be a human being or a simple element of our daily lives, or even a landscape transfigured by a particular light. These diverse "portraits" are large-format, giving the image an autonomy akin to that of a painting.

The photographs in the "Trees" series (1980 - 1999) reflect a determination not to give in to the picturesque, but to restore the full symbolic charge of a particular, vaguely disquieting place, with its pagan divinities and myths. This is suggested in these images by the tangle of branches from which emerges a skilfully worked light, where the absence of any human or animal presence contributes to undoing familiar spatial and temporal landmarks.
Jean-Luc Tartarin's large-format prints, made by the artist shortly after the photo was taken, are
The photographer's sensitivity to variations in grain and texture is expressed as much in his technical choices as in his choices of framing and lighting.

Laurence Demaison, "Haïkus
The fruit of a long process of research and experimentation, Laurence Demaison takes advantage of the multiple technical possibilities of silver photography to create intriguing and singular images, between beauty and cruelty, lightness and gravity.

The "Haïkus" are among the photographer's first fully realized works. Here, the difficult quest for the ideal model is resolved as if by magic: turning to her own body, which she observes from every angle, the artist finds her best subject in her own flesh. Like a poem dedicated to the ephemeral passage of a cloud, the haikus explore the play of light on a woman's vulva. In the tradition of surrealist photography, which likes to play with perception and reveal unsuspected signs in everyday forms, Laurence Demaison composes a primary alphabet, at the origin of the world and of photography.

Show less