calendario eventi  :: 

X

2/11/2008

Harry Gruyaert

Passage du Desir, Paris

Texte by Quentin Bajac
Chef du Cabinet de la Photographie du Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou


For several months in 1972, in London where he was living at the time, Harry Gruyaert decided to take colour photos of his untuned TV screen. A seemingly unimportant gesture, yet one highly significant in terms of its double heritage: referring on the one hand to the artistic and playful heritage of the Americain Pop Art of the preceding decade, from Nam June Paik to Andy Warhol and their double fascination for the object and the televised image. And on the other, the photography of the same period which, from Lee Friedlander to Robert Frank, considered the television as the ultimate symbol of consumer society and a certain alienation of the modern world.

However, by introducing strident colours and focusing exclusively on the television screen, Harry Gruyaert proposed a new and singular interpretation. Through his lens, the television became a hallucinatory, even hypnotic, machine, like a new Gorgon freezing the modern spectator - a sensation reinforced by the sound and projection of the new installation at the Passage du Désir.

Harry Gruyaert's gesture also suggests a questioning of the vocabulary and habits of photojournalism. By freezing instants of the ceaseless flow of images on the screen, he offers an off-beat version: that of a bedroom journalist, somewhat disconnected, who testifies - half fascinated, half horrified - of the great disorder of the world and its representations.


Sound: Louis Dandrel
Design: Olivier Koechlin


Exhibition produced as part of the Paris Photo Month official programme, 2008.

" I was living in London at the beginning of the 70s. There was a busted TV set in my flat: by fiddling with the antenna and the settings, it was possible to obtain fascinating colours.

Lets not forget that at the time, video recorders didn't exist yet, let alone a 'pause' button, or 'rewind'. I was thus 'live' in front of the news, camera in hand, getting up close to the screen to frame the images differently. Ultimately, my situation was similar to that of a street photographer for whom, in my opinion, obtaining a good picture is about mastering chance, a kind of little miracle."
------- Harry Gruyaert

Passage du Desir
85-87, rue du Faubourg Saint-Martin - Paris

stampa

permanent link