Pieter Hugo and the untouchables
Pieter Hugo creates with his “street models” an exceptional work of portraits. He is free to photograph “Untouchables” from different countries, cultures and communities.
The creator makes fun of the codes and conventions inherent in institutional or market-driven artistic productions. He stages various protagonists in latent or open conflict with their social or political context.
This is why the photos of the South African photographer are staggering. Admittedly, these portraits remain within a political scope, but they go beyond this framework alone. Because from such a study he transfigures the real without it losing its strength.
Different social groups are thus represented but always with extreme beauty. So the title of such an exhibition is perfect. He retains the “difference” as Derrida wrote, but above all the beauty of the faces of various types of “marginal” (poor, healers, etc.).
The photographer makes perceptible the unspeakable and the intransmissible. His assemblages, deployed in space, overwhelm the viewer. Through an immersive formatting, he immerses us in a magical and deep world regardless of the situation of confinement or discrimination suffered, regardless of the alienating political and administrative systems.
Jean-Paul Gavard-Perret
Pieter Hugo: Beauty and Asymmetry
from May 10 to 15, 2022
Galerie Priska Parquer
6 rue des Coutures
Saint Gervais
75003 Paris
www.priskapasquer.art
