The collective Tendance Floue is celebrating its 25 years in 2016 with, a little in advance, the exhibition ‘Twenty five? Hey, give me five!’ until 17th October in Paris at the Topographie de l’Art to celebrate this quarter century. L’Oeil de la Photographie is dedicating two editions (today and tomorrow) to the collective of French photographers and reviewing its history: from its birth up to today…and bringing up their projects of tomorrow.
“We met by accident, at the beginning of the 90s. We were young and crazy about photography. We had a kitchen, a lab, time, desires and some cameras. We knew what we didn’t want to do. We watched the world and the world of photography. We sought to do things differently. We chose to share and exchange around photography, to see if it was possible to live together,
We were more together after we established in 1991 a weekly meeting that saw the birth, during a meal washed down with plenty of wine in a smoky room, the collective “to be”, and where very soon, the federating slogan burst forth: “Freedom? Yes! Individuality? No!”
In our time for speech, abandonment and crazy ideas, we dedicated more time to defining the idea of a collective than to work on photographic productions. We had to challenge the codes of relationships , creation and work.
Is being in a collective, to share everything? Is it to meet until we agree unanimously? Is it to preach utopia? To learn to save your own skin in the pack? To rid yourself of the guilt of being individualistic? Is it to be sheltered form the uncertainties of the profession? Is it to exist?
Here, like elsewhere, as in any microsociety, there are injustices, inequalities, loneliness, disorganized parties, friendship, love, hatred, hope… a complete mess.
But the tribe doesn’t know how to exist without a communal will of creation. If some photographers don’t always define themselves as artists, the collective itself looks for the artistic act. It tries continually to go into the field of experience as one goes into a minefield, with a share of the fun and the danger that this includes. We are amazed at the result that often escapes us. We take in the incestuous relationships that the photographs have amongst themselves. At each attempt, the mode of operation is called into question. We cultivate the violence, the fragility, the emotion. In the collective creation, it is the energy that has the power. It is composed of ideas, dialectic, expectations and the capacity for unity among many.
The collective is a mutation. It is the fruit of a time that saw the birth of transplants and cloning. We are all different, members and organs of the same body. The communal trunk has to be healthy for everything to exist. The collective being feeds itself on the gift of the individual. It can only function with generosity, sacrifice and humility. Those who give can come off badly. The beast is carnivorous, cruel and formidable. The body of the monster pumps energy drawn from its own source.
Tendance Floue is an alchemy, a particular precipitate, born from a history, from a human combination, of which we have forgotten the biological formula. But perhaps it is a matter of additions, divisions, subtractions… psychological equations. It is without any doubt the result of a multitude of experiences accumulated in the little laboratory in Montreuil in the Paris suburb. As long as the energy is there, we will pursue the adventure. It could only be a model, in cultivating a philosophy, in reverse of the current tendency, putting at the heart of the “enterprise” pleasure and freedom.
That’s what we call living the photography.”
– Mat Jacob
photographer, cofounder of Tendance Floue
© Delpire / Actes Sud
EXHIBITION
Tendance Floue : Twenty five? Hey, give me five!
Curators : Christine Ollier, Fany Dupechez, Mat Jacob
From September 5th to October 17th, 2015
Espace Topographie de l’Art
15 rue de Thorigny
75003 Paris
France
From Tuesday to Saturday 14h – 19h
T. 01 40 29 44 28
M° : St Paul ou St Sébastien-Froissart
http://www.topographiedelart.fr
http://www.tendancefloue.net
