Two exhibitions
dal 3/3/2006 al 20/5/2006
Segnalato da
3/3/2006
Two exhibitions
Fondation Cartier, Paris
Juergen Teller - Do you know what I mean. The artist has chosen to present a major new body of work, the Nurnberg series. An investigation of Germany’s recent past as well as a celebration of the importance of family. Tadanori Yokoo - a wide selection of paintings and posters. In his works, the artist created a true Pop art imagery, a me'lange of geishas, blond pin-ups, baroque cherubs.
Juergen Teller/Tadanori Yokoo
Juergen Teller
Do you know what I mean
The Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain is pleased to present the first major
solo
exhibition in France of influential German photographer Juergen Teller.
For his
exhibition
at the Fondation Cartier, the artist has chosen to present a major new body of
work, the Nurnberg series. An investigation of Germany’s recent past as well as a
celebration
of the importance of family, the Nurnberg series will serve as the guiding thread
of a retrospective that will also include the major images from the artist’s career,
as well
as a new series of photographs realized in Japan.
The exhibition at the Fondation
Cartier will also provide a special focus on the artist’s work as it appears in
publications,
exploring the relationships created by the sequencing of images in printed form.
Brought up in the small town of Bubenreuth in the woods surrounding
Nurenberg, Juergen Teller (born in 1966) came upon photography by
accident. Following in the footsteps of his father, he first worked as an
apprentice making bows for violins. When he developed a debilitating
allergy to the wood with which he worked, the doctor advised rest and a
change of air. He thus left for a trip to Italy with his cousin Helmut, who
gave him the opportunity to try his hand at making pictures. Upon his
return home, he decided to make photography his vocation and subsequently
enrolled in the Bayerische Staatslehranstalt fur Photographie in
Munich, where he was provided a solid education in the basics of photographic
technique.
After graduation, he decided to move to London in 1986 where he
rapidly became an important name in photography working for British
fashion magazines. His innovative editorials shifted away from the artifice
and refinement of conventional fashion photography towards a highly
personal form of romantic, fantastical realism. Capturing his subjects at
seemingly unrehearsed moments, Juergen Teller reveals them in all of their
imperfection and vulnerability.
Exposing the scars and blemishes of his models, Juergen Teller’s photographs
question conventional
notions of beauty. Breaking down the traditional relationship between the
photographer and his subject,
Teller works collaboratively with his models to reveal their most intimate selves.
Immediate yet highlytuned,
Juergen Teller’s images leave us with a sense that we are looking at fragments of
real lives lived.
Juergen Teller’s exhibition at the Fondation Cartier will feature a major new body
of work, entitled
Nurnberg. Returning to this familiar city close to his childhood home, the artist
photographed—over a
period of four seasons—the Zeppelintribune parade grounds, formerly the site of Nazi
propaganda rallies
and part of a larger complex of monuments designed by Albert Speer for the National
Socialist Party.
Photographing the weeds and flowers that struggle through the huge regular blocks of
stone and monumental
steps of these grounds, Teller records the advancing decay of the monument which,
unlike the neighbouring coliseum, has been left over the years to gradual ruin.
Photographed in spring, summer autumn and winter, the delicate beauty
of the weeds neutralizes the harsh history of the site and offers the possibility
of a future redemption.
Parallel to these still life images and also shot over the same four
seasons, Teller photographed his growing family, himself and the surroundings
of his family home in the woods of Bubenreuth. There are images that
show us his smiling baby son in a bubble bath, a gentle fawn sleeping in the
woods, the intense and introspective gaze of his young daughter. An
emotional panorama drawing on both personal and collective history, the
Nurnberg series provides a moving proposition of cyclical renewal and hope.
Juergen Teller is a hybrid artist; his work crosses over the conventional
boundaries separating fashion and documentary, public and private.
Presenting a wide range of photographic genres such as portraits, landscapes
and fashion photographs, the exhibition of the Fondation Cartier
explores the artists work in all of its diversity. Whether he is photographing
supermodels and celebrities
or himself and his family, Juergen Teller finds poetry in the everyday, creating
images that are poignant,
humorous, rough or tender. This unique approach to photography has enabled him to
create a profoundly
moving and sensitive vision of our times.
---
Tadanori Yokoo
From March 4 to May 21, 2006 the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain will be
presenting, for the first time in Europe, a wide selection of paintings and posters by
Japanese artist Tadanori Yokoo.
A veritable graphic design
icon in the 60’s and 70’s, this artist gained international
renown early on through his posters and illustrations. In his
works, he created a true Pop art imagery, a me'lange of
geishas, blond pin-ups, baroque cherubs that intermingle
against a background of Hokusai-like waves or a rising sun,
and better than anyone else, he reveals Japanese post-war
culture. He later turned to painting as his preferred means
of expression, extending and exploring the main themes
found in his graphic works: life, death, sex.
Tadanori Yokoo (born in 1936 in Hyogo Prefecture, Japan) began his career
in the world of advertising and illustration. He was soon remarked by figures
like the writer Yukio Mishima and the designer Issey Miyake, and went on to
collaborate closely with them
for many years. Playing with styles from different periods, Tadanori Yokoo developed
an idiosyncratic
language, appropriating elements from the graphic arts tradition in Japanese culture
as well as from Western
references (Marilyn Monroe, the Beatles). He copied, duplicated and multiplied his
motifs, leading, through
a process of combination and accumulation, to a great diversity of
imagery. He thus forged a personal style based on repetition and
borrowing, citing both Eastern and Western art as well as his own
compositions.
In the early 80’s, painting became the medium through which he
continued to powerfully and radically express this extraordinary
fictional world. Via subjects rooted in a personal and collective
memory, his paintings explore themes such as death, life, society, sex,
and religion, through a profusion of motifs. Against a starry night,
volcanoes, pyramids and urban landscapes are deconstructed, isolated,
half-finished, or accompanied by their reflection, and admixed with
a disorderly gush of objects and subjects as astonishing as a skull,
a flying saucer, a lion or a steam locomotive. Each element’s place in
the composition is the result of the mental associations it entertains
with the others, all of which is entirely dictated by the artist’s subjectivity.
For
Tadanori Yokoo, memory is a
collage of visual experiences, the result of moments lived, and not a blank terrain.
Voluntarily crossing the
boundary between art and life, he may be compared to the Dadaists
and the Surrealists, or to his American peers, Andy Warhol and
Robert Rauschenberg.
A large selection from the series of red paintings which he began in
the 90’s will be on view during the exhibition at the Fondation
Cartier. The stylistic unity provided by this dominant color is
diversified by a multiplicity of themes such as death, spirituality,
childhood or the city. These themes will be explored and linked to a
range of other works such as the more ironic Pink Girls series (dating
from the 60’s) and the Y Junctions series (from 2000-2002), as well
as to a selection of vintage posters, illustrations and books attesting
to the diversity of his creative activity.
---
The exhibitions are organized with support from the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, under the aegis of the Fondation de France, and with the sponsorship of Cartier.
Press Information
Linda Chenit
assisted by He'le'ne Cahuzac
Tel +33 (0)1 42 18 56 77/65
Fax +33 (0)1 42 18 56 52
Image: Juergen Teller - Mother and crocodile, Bubenreuth, Germany, 2002
Press opening with the artist on Friday, March 3 from 3:00 to 5:00 pm
Fondation Cartier
261, boulevard Raspail - Paris