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5/5/2009

Lise Sarfati

Brancolini Grimaldi Arte Contemporanea, Roma

Brancolini Grimaldi is pleased to announce "Austin, Texas", an exhibition of 26 color photographs by Lise Sarfati from May 6 - June 14, 2009. The opening will take place at the gallery on May 6th at 6 pm, Via dei Tre Orologi 6/A, Roma.

LISE SARFATI - Austin,Texas- Lise Sarfati’s series "Austin, Texas" was produced in 2008 for "Fashion Magazine" published by Magnum Photos.
The series is a continuation of a trilogy that began in 2003 with "The New Life" (published by Twin Palms in 2005), and "Immaculate" (which will be published in July 2009 by Steidl Mack), and the unfinished series "She". The photographs question the intricacies of female identity.

THE FICTIONAL DOCUMENT
In her work, Lise Sarfati makes no distinction between documentary and fiction. The choice of Austin, Texas is not a coincidence: Austin is both the geographic center of the United States and the epicenter of the underground rock scene. The teenage models, chosen by Sarfati, appear in their own surroundings - that of Austin, with its wooden houses, its interiors, its streets and its soft colors. A disturbing sensuality seeps from each of the photographs, revealing the hidden inner world of each character.

SPACE AND THE BODY
Lise Sarfati’s work focuses on the relationship between the body and space. It is this continuous interaction of the characters within their space which structures her approach. She does not refer to her work as portraiture, but as a "study" of figures. Quentin Bajac describes this phenomenon well: "All these girls are located in the ‘here and now’ of the picture and an indefinable elsewhere. This fundamental ubiquity is, to my mind, the reason for Sarfati’s interest in young models.[...] Each of these photos literally records the distance between a body and the space that surrounds it, and in that way, metaphorically (and this time very consciously) constructs a relationship between the model and the world around her." (1)

NARRATIVE FASHION
Naïve and brutal, seemingly straight out of a novel, with powerful sensuality, reclined on an armchair in the family room, or roaming the streets of a possibleTexan Eden, these young women have no purpose, no cause to fight, noclear action to explain their restless wandering. "The clothing always seems to have been chosen to match the model, and the logic is one (suite) of verisimilitude – each young woman projects a character she has chosen, but remains completely in harmony with her own natural context and setting. In accordance with Sarfati’s photographic maieutics, they’re full participants in the final photo’s mise en scène.[...] Thus the change induced by the closing has nothing in common with metamorphosis. It is even imperceptible sometimes. In any case, the clothing never seems to be a disguise under which the model disappears." (Quentin Bajac "Life Stills")(2)

PERPETUAL ADOLESCENCE
Lise Sarfati’s approach is deeply rooted in the literary concept of permanent immaturity, described by writer Witold Gombrowicz. In his masterpiece Ferdydurke, the author states "youth was not for her a transitional period: for a modern person, it was the only period that was real in all of existence." an idea Sarfati’s work continuously references.
Quentin Bajac again eloquently explains this fundamental contribution to the photographer’s work : "She likes to cite Gombrowicz and his fondness for the concept of immaturity – a secret revolt, a silent refusal, a game played with life and reality, and especially the idea of a subject both malleable and yet elusive, who always, in the end, slips away."(3)
Lise Sarfati herself explains to Rick Owens in another interview on Fashion Magazine: "What interests me about American teenagers isn’t the social dimension. It’s adolescence from a more general view, as a metaphor, a transition, a mirror."

DAILY ROMANCES
This undeniable contribution of literary work forged Sarfati’s perception and photographic practice, giving her a marked taste for storytelling. The artist is interested in the anti-heroic stories of teenagers from provincial cities in the USA. Each of the three series are a transverse story; each evoking a new story that plunges us into literary imaginings. For Sarfati, photographic aesthetics are not built by the photographer’s eye, but by an accumulation of experiences and sensations that create a complex world, a unique history.

Paris, 5th January 2009
Lise Sarfati’s work is included in numerous public collections including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Biblioteque Nationale de France in Paris. Her work has been featured in solo exhibitions at FOAM Amsterdam;the Domus Artium, Salamanca, Spain; Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris, France; and the Nicolaj Center of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen, Denmark. In 1996, the artist was awarded the Prix Niepce in Paris and the Infinity Award from the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York.
(1)(2)(3) Quentin Bajac, "Life Stills" from Lise Sarfati Fashion Magazine Austin,Texas, october 2008, Magnum Publisher

Image: Eva-Claire #02 Austin, TX 2008, © Lise Sarfati, Courtesy Brancolini Grimaldi, Rome

Press Contact
Romaric Tisserand +33 6 80324231 contact@influentculture.com

Opening Wednesday, May 6th at 6pm

Brancolini Grimaldi Arte Contemporanea
via dei Tre Orologi, 6 a Roma
Gallery Hours: Mon-Fri 10:00-13:30, 13:30-19:00

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