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3/1/2010

Richard Pak

Centre Atlantique de la Photographie, Brest

Echoing the United States Declaration of Independence stating every American's rights to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness", Pursuit is the synthesis between a mental construction and the reality of a contemporary USA.

Richard Pak is a keen admirer of American literature and cinema and artists such as Raymond Carver, John Fante, Truman Capote or Bob Rafelson helped him create his own ideated America. For some, American culture is decadent and imperialistic, for others it is the symbol of democratic values and freedom. But Pursuit turns to the field of fiction and only aims to build a chronicle of a fantasized country.

Over a 6-year period, from 2003 to 2009, Richard Pak focused on the everyday life of "ordinary" people to picture the American experience as a metaphor for a bigger experience. Trying to stay away from the spectacular and the anecdotic, he means to suggest rather than describe, translating life's small dramas into something timeless and universal.

The first part of this work was spent travelling without a clear itinerary, relying on chance encounters with the people he would photograph. The later stage was more prepared and constructed since Richard Pak chose to live with his subjects, spending days in their homes and sharing their everyday life to go beyond the surface.

Rather than focusing on the socio-economic antagonisms between the protagonists, he preferred to concentrate on what unites them. Little matters if the price to pay is an addiction to the media, drugs, religion, sex...in the end Hope is the only thing left, as a mirage floating over a desert. Pursuit is the illustration of the author's empathy for the pursuers of this chimerical quest, happiness.

"Pursuit is a work about time and expectation", says Richard Pak. We can see the link with Raymond Carver's writings in which men measure themselves to what surpasses them. The inability to love. The force to survive. The inescapability of death.

Image: Pursuit

Centre Atlantique de la Photographie
Square Beethoven 60 - Rue du Chateau Brest, F 29020 Brest

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