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Leaving for the unknown

Fabien — Mon, 14 May 2012 09:45:20 +0000

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Quote

Fabien — Sat, 05 May 2012 03:38:00 +0000

Enjoy life as a flow of chaos and beauty. Try seeing the world as perfect the way it is ; it’s messy, dirty, chaotic… and completely perfect. The world is beautiful just as it is.

Revamped from Leo Babauta’s Focus.

Masks : Charles Fréger’s Wilder Mann, Estelle Hanania, Thomas Rousset

Fabien — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 13:21:28 +0000

I’ve been thinking for several years now about doing a project involving masks, especially shamanic and traditional masks used by Native Americans or ethnic groups from other continents. They fascinate me. These masks usually fulfill a spiritual and ritual function and evoke a direct contact with the spirits or the gods. Impressive, they inspire respect, awe and fear. They disconnect their wearer from regular humanity and confer him/her an augmented status. The wearer symbolically loses his/her face to become a mediator between two worlds.

Yupik shaman Nushagak

However, and if we are to trust the title of Charles Fréger’s new work Wilder Mann, that’s only partially what this series is about. Fréger explores the remnants of animism in Europe, or the signs of a revitalization of these practices by small groups of initiated people. Looking at these images, Dionysus the goat and his mysteries come to mind, but also all the Northern Europe pagan myths. Here is an ampler review of this work and a link to the book.

This kind of gatherings had already been photographed by Estelle Hanania in her Parking Lot Hydra series in 2009. Fréger’s work is more systematic and his style more frontal and neutral, in the tradition of deadpan photography.

Another European photographer takes interest in ritual masks and finery : Thomas Rousset. His series Waska Tatay, shot in Bolivia if I remember well, is an amazing work between performance, installation and landscape photography. The masks he uses are pretty impressive and this particular picture really scared me the first time I saw it :

To come back to Fréger’s images, my favorite are the ones with masks, as they are the most striking to me. Even more striking are the pictures where the face and the hair become one indistinguishable mass.

Printing for the “Next Stop Wuhan” Exhibition

Fabien — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 05:41:06 +0000

We completed last week the printing for this group exhibition that will feature the work of two French photographers (Benoit Cezard and myself) and four Spanish photographers (Jorquera, Paco Gomez, Carlos Lujan, Carlos Sanva), all members of the Nophoto collective. Although only Benoit, Jorquera and I live in Wuhan, all the images were shot here.
The exhibition will start on saturday April 28 and will tour in Wuhan, outdoor. I will give more details as soon as I know a bit more.

Limited Edition Prints on ARTLIGUE

Fabien — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 13:41:08 +0000

Artligue is a new gallery and art editor in Paris (9 rue des Arquebusiers — 75003 Paris). It offers photographic prints in limited edition, with a maximum size of 40 x 50 cm and one framing option chosen by the artist. 34 photographers take part in the first edition with 2 images each. The guest curator of this edition is Jörg Colberg.
I’m honoured to be part of this edition along with Richard Renaldi, Rob Hornstra, Cara Pillips, Christophe Maout, Lydia Anne McCarthy, Andrés Marroquín Winkelmann, Ambroise Tézenas, etc.
My images are one photograph from the Under the Leaves body of work and an individual picture called The Island. They are both digital C-prints on satin photo paper within floating frames.
If you are in Paris, go and have a look. The website also features interviews with the artists.
I’m excited to embark on this adventure with the Artligue team!

A quote from Joel Meyerowitz

Fabien — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 08:55:25 +0000

“I photograph not to make pictures, but to have an experience.”

Like flies to neon lights — new work in progress

Fabien — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 04:16:30 +0000

I am currently shooting for this new project, started in September 2011. Shooting took place in Hubei and Yunnan so far. I will head to Hainan in May to explore the jungle there, shoot for this project and maybe for another project involving vegetation and shot in 4x5.
Like Flies to Neon Lights involves several problematics. It first deals with vision and the ideas of blindness, dazzle and darkness.It is somehow an exploration of the limits of photography. Sharpness is rejected to make way to a more suggestive and subjective way of expression. This project might have been unintentionally inspired by my own myopia (I’m very short-sighted and wear glasses since I was 5).
The first picture of the work represents a transition between the two other series of the vegetation cycle and this one. It symbolizes the dazzling moment after which the viewer will try to find his/her way through the forest, guided by the light landing on leaves or glowing through them.
This work therefore also tackles the question of our relationship to nature and to forests in particular. First, it is an attempt to convey the experience of moving through vegetation and the jungle flora. The inclusion of human elements then stresses our similarity to vegetation. We are both organic, translucent, glowing and craving for light. If Under the Leaves was giving a life and a will of its own to vegetation, Like Flies to Neon Lights describes the human body as a vegetal element.

Spring and books are all I need

Fabien — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 14:44:53 +0000

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Shen XiangSheng — Remembering the days in Wuhan | 沈祥胜 — 江城记忆

Fabien — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 14:07:08 +0000

Last week I stumbled upon a book by Shen XiangSheng, Remembering the days in Wuhan (沈祥胜 — 江城记忆), published in 2007 by the 湖北美术出版社 (Hubei Province Fine Arts Publishing Society). The book features black and white photographs mostly taken in the street of Wuhan in the 2000’s or late 1990’s. They are really revealing about life in this city and in China in general, at least for this period — they already look dated. Most of them are 24x36, some 6x6. They are unevenly interesting, but I love some of them. It’s a nice tribute to Chinese street photography.

Daily Basis

Fabien — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 12:30:36 +0000

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