Galerie XII Paris presents “Il y a un instant où la nuit se fait voir à la lumière”, the first group exhibition of the year. A future recurring approach which will bring together invited artists and represented artists for a dialogue around contemporary photography.
The seven artists exhibited for this first proposal have in common a photographic writing which questions the power of representation of the image. Around a central theme, inspired by the words of Paul Valéry, There is a moment when it seems as if the night is seen in the light*, they redefine the notion of photography. If they have chosen it as a mode of expression, they are not so much fascinated by the image as by its construction, its physical presence and its materiality. They interpret it, they use it, they go beyond it to present it differently. The question does not lie in the image but in its capacity to metamorphose and be reborn in another form.
Fabien Ducrot addresses the subject using archive images and artificial intelligence. From 19th century archive photographs compiled by the thousands, images are born imbued with a new materiality. Because if AI shapes the unreal and questions the very notion of image, Fabien Ducrot uses traditional salt printing processes which give a new texture to the images.
Materials and images are also constantly redefining with Charlotte Mano, who stages her mental images, her memories and her sensations through photography. Attracted by supports foreign to this universe and attached to experimenting with the limits of the tool – the camera – she creates works in which images and textures are inseparable. A new, tactile dimension is thus born, which shakes up our relationship with the sensitive.
The question of the object image is also present in the universe of Anne Pharel, who photographs intangible visual moments whose images nevertheless bear witness to the existence. A questioning of sensitive matter and its consistency through flat or volume works.
Alexandre Aldavert and Sabatina Leccia also consider printing as a material, which manual intervention or intellectual thought completes. It is a step in the creative process. Associated with writing and poetry for him, with perforation and embroidery for her, the print disappears as such. He experiences a metamorphosis to be reborn in another form.
In contrast and in a more classic approach to photography, the work of Andrei Farcasanu unfolds around the intimate through small format works. He questions the notion of the materiality of the work through technical know-how. Several images can be born from the same shot, each imbued with a different materiality depending on the chemistry. A research shared by Didier Juteau, whose images take away the viewer visual certainties as photography and material merge.
A crossroads of visual universes with the darkness of the night as its leitmotif. It is around it that artists consider photography, its forms and its physical presence. So many artists for whom it is essential to strip images of their initial meaning and thus offer viewers new poetic realities.
Il y a un instant où la nuit se fait voir à la lumière
February 1 – April 13, 2024
Galerie XII Paris
14 rue des Jardins Saint-Paul
75004 Paris
www.galeriexii.com
