The new series by Martine Fougeron was taken in the South Bronx where this French photographer visited bakers, fishmongers and tradesmen of all sorts. Her work is on display until June 5 at the Andrew Freeman Home.
Martine Fougeron merely had to cross the street. Accustomed to pictures in close proximity, she decided to wander through her own neighborhood to explore the workers whose businesses are forgotten while taking a tour in the supermarket. She chose this project in order to highlight the dignity of these trades and the professional skills required, in her memory the historical work of Irving Penn. “Today”, she explains, “we only see employees of big businesses. In a society obsessed with technology, we often forget that manual labor still exists.”
In these small businesses, the photographer met with joyous people, many having worked together for 30 or 40 years, well aware of the unique nature of their trade and the history of their profession. Where major businesses establish assembly lines, automating tasks and transforming work into monotony and repetition, Martine’s employees work together to find individual solutions to the various stages of production and delivery. Scaling fish, preparing giant cakes, piercing the mysteries of a giant printer: these are some of the images she captured. “The fishmongers are amazing, they scale and slice them so quickly… they provide fish for Manhattan’s finest restaurants. In these hangars, there are knives and ice everywhere.”
These small businesses are in good hands at the Andrew Freedman Home, a former retirement home for previously wealthy New Yorkers that has since been transformed into an unbelievable exhibition hall and theater. On the walls of this small room, a former bedroom, her pictures are displayed in pastry molds, the same she shot in the bakery ovens. A delightful surprise for one of the subjects, a charming South American woman whose talents in the kitchen progressed thanks to her calligraphy skills, who poses with one of her creations.
Given the requirement for authorization, it will take another few months before Martine Fougeron provides another series, but she intends to visit a fruit and vegetable salesman or ride on a freight train. “There might be another exhibition, a book, or maybe some filmed sequences.” Even if today’s pictures could use a bit more composition and would benefit from some internal movement, the project deserves encouragement in a photographic landscape where documentary work about daily life has become so rare.
Trades in the South Bronx, Martine Fougeron
Until June 5th, 2012
Andrew Freedman Home
1125 Grand Concourse
Bronx, NY 10452
T : (718) 293-8100
