The past year has been busy for visual artist Phillip Toledano. In April, the documentary The Many Sad Fates of Mr. Toledano, about one of his ongoing series, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in new York. Earlier, a book of his latest series, When I was six (2014-2015), was published by Dewi Lewis. Today, and through September 6th, 2015, the Hamburg Triennial of Photography is devoting a sizable section of its main exhibition, The Day Will Come When Man Falls, at the Haus der Photographie, to Toledano’s work. Six of his projects are on display in a layout that is both touching and mesmerizing. The exhibition also features 50 portraits from the F.C. Gundlach collection, founder of the Hamburg Triennial.
Born in London in 1968 and based in New York, Phillip Toledano is primarily a conceptual artist who chooses to work with photography. He is less interested in exploring the potential of the medium in itself. Rather, he adapts the camera to his narrative and cinematic needs. Photography is there to provoke the open experience of a personal vision. Through photography, Toledano publicly revisits his soul and art.
The deeply theatrical aesthetic of his work sheds light of emotions which would otherwise remain hidden. Hope and fear, illusion and love, passing time and the irreversibility of mourning—these are all common situations that Toledano interprets from the intimate horizon of his personal experience. Their visualization allows him to master the reality, to soothe the expectation, or to simply celebrate their presence and be aware of them.
Read the full article on the French version of L’Oeil.
