“I seek out mysterious tensions between the spontaneous and the staged.” -Martine Fougeron
Nicolas & Adrien. A World with Two Sons is a series of intimate portraits of Martine Fougeron’s two sons and their friends growing up in New York and France. Both tender and distanced, the book is a visual bildungsroman that delves into the intense present of her sons’ adolescent states of mind before they become independent adults.
Nicolas et Adrien consists of two interconnected bodies of work, “Teen Tribe” (2005–10) and “The Twenties” (2010–18). Composed mostly of photos taken at Fougeron’s New York home and during summers in the South of France, “Teen Tribe” explores adolescence as a liminal state between childhood and adulthood, and follows the adolescent’s interior quest and development of character. “The Twenties” captures the period between adolescence and full adulthood, depicting her sons’ college years, trials with vocations and work, new friends and lovers, holidays and family celebrations. Nicolas & Adrien is a sensual biography of two adolescents and a depiction of the universal processes of growing up to which all can relate.
“I am influenced by conventions of cinema, especially the dramatic effects of set lighting. I also derive inspiration from Dutch painting, particularly Vermeer’s mysterious domestic portraits.” – Martine Fougeron
Born in Paris in 1954, Martine Fougeron studied at l’Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris, Wellesley College and the International Center of Photography in New York. Her exhibitions include those at the Gallery at Hermès in New York (2013) and the Bronx Museum of the Arts (2016), while her work forms part of major collections including the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Fougeron contributes frequently to The New Yorker, the New York Times Sunday Magazine and FT Weekend Magazine, among other publications.
“Fougeron’s pictures of Adrien and Nicolas sleeping or lounging about in Greenwich Village and the South of France have a lovely looseness and spontaneity, but they never feel like snapshots. Color energizes the work and adds to its sensual undertow.” – Vince Aletti, The New Yorker
Martine Fougeron : Nicolas & Adrien. A World with Two Sons
Text by Martine Fougeron, Lyle Rexer.
Conversation between Martine Fougeron, Robert A. Schafer, Jr.
Book Design: Martine Fougeron, Gerhard Steidl, Holger Feroudj
264 pages, 159 images
US$ 45.00 / € 40.00
ISBN 978-3-95829-685-5
