Nicolas Krief (France) : “Hangings”
The artistic production which was for thousands of years in the service of religions and cults has now become an object of worship; it has its temples, museums, and its faithful, we, the public who each year seem more enthusiastic to extract ourselves from the contingencies of everyday life to celebrate it during major exhibitions.
This series deals with the work in museums, during the preparation of these high masses. Nicolas Krief began this work in 2010. The 30 photos presented here were taken at the Grand Palais, the Musée d’Orsay, the Palazzo Ducale in Venice.
When he began this work, one of his first impressions was the liturgical dimension of the scenes he witnessed: precious and admirable objects, handled according to strict rules and procedures, practiced by specialists. The question of relationship to the museum object quickly seemed central to him, and his gaze changed.
He clearly saw a phenomenon of transubstantiation taking place: the museum enthroned the exhibited object, as a cult object, as a work of art or pop’art.
These hanging moments seemed to him to be exceptional moments in the relationship that we maintain with the museum object, with the object of art, with art. Moments where the different proximities to the sacred are expressed, and the different relationships to the work of art.
His images are snapshots. No installation or staging, no auxiliary lighting.
Nicolas Krief is based in Paris, he works regularly for the daily press and for magazines: Le Monde, Paris Match, Le Figaro Magazine, Ideat, The Good Life, Télérama… and also for museum institutions. At 20, he read Roland Barthes “Mythologies”, which had a great influence on him. He discovered another intelligence of the signs of our time, of the force of language in the face of formulas or evidences. The photography he tries to belong to only makes sense if it allows and contributes to a better understanding of reality. Nicolas Krief likes to give a literary and epic dimension to ordinary situations. His personal work takes him to behind the scenes of museums and major exhibitions, where he explores our relationship to art and artworks in his series Accrochages. For several years, he worked on culture and rural life in France. His series “Jours de fête” shows sharing moments and social life in the Sarthe.
His work is distributed by Divergence Images.
Exhibition
March 11-April 19, 2020
Goblins, L’École de l’Image
73, boulevard Saint-Marcel,
75013 Paris
