Last Thursday, we introduced Thierry Bigaignon and his project to open a gallery in Paris. This week we follow up with a second interview with this motivated and ambitious entrepreneur. He took the opportunity to give us an exclusive preview of the photographer slated to inaugurate the gallery next June*.
What artist are you going to show to inaugurate your gallery ?
To make a long story short, on June 10, 1975, Agathe Gaillard launched the first photography gallery in Paris. Imagine for a moment the audacity it took to affirm in those days that photography was an art in its own right, worthy of being exhibited. With the same audacity, Agathe Gaillard decided to inaugurate her gallery by exhibiting the work of a little-known artist, whose work stood in contrast to the humanist trend in vogue at the time: Ralph Gibson. This American artist has proven to be one of the major figures in photography. Today, 41 years later, Agathe Gaillard is sponsoring our inaugural exhibition. The event, a real passing of the torch, had to be exceptional. I am therefore delighted to announce, exclusively for The Eye of Photography, that Mr Ralph Gibson will be the first artist represented by the Thierry Bigaignon Gallery.
How did you make this choice? How did you go about approaching Ralph Gibson ?
My choice resulted, above all, from an imperative. To begin with, I was looking for an artist possessed of a singular vision. Ralph Gibson had already been among my top ten even before I met Agathe Gaillard. When Agathe agreed to support my first exhibition, I asked her, out of curiosity, whom she exhibited to make her debut. When she pointed to the poster of her 1975 exhibition featuring a sumptuous image by Ralph Gibson, I immediately thought he would be the ideal artist since I love his work very much and he is an ideal representative of the avant-garde. However, it was out of the question that I would show any of the famous images everybody knows. This is where the passing of the torch with Agathe is fabulous, because I believe that, as she did in 1975, I am going to show new work, a new way of seeing! I wanted to meet Ralph Gibson in person so that he could show me his most recent work. True artists never rest on their laurels; they need to be constantly producing something. So I suspected that he would have some gems to show me. I went to New York, and I was not disappointed !
What preparatory work did you do with Ralph Gibson in New York ?
When I told Ralph that I was not planning to exhibit his best-known photographs, his best-sellers, at first he was surprised, but then he became really excited at the idea of showing what he was currently working on. So he sat at his desk and rather than pull out an old box of gelatin silver prints, he took out the memory card from his Leica and showed me the images he had taken that very morning! That’s the sort of thing one rarely gets to experience! And it was amazing: at 77, Ralph has preserved a truly unspoiled gaze. I would even say that his present work is even more accomplished than what he did 30 or 40 years ago, although it has always been the result of well-honed instinct. From a meeting in his studio that could have been over in two hours, we went to working non-stop behind closed doors for 4 days, selecting the most striking images, sometimes making the painful choice of setting aside those that weren’t perfect, but also discussing photography, philosophy, history, politics… A great artist, Ralph is also a man of culture, and a Francophile to boots.
How would you describe the images, the series, you are going to show?
I believe these are images that are going to take viewers by surprise. First of all, I will say that there won’t be any of the high-contrast black-and-white images for which he is well known. We have carefully selected a dozen recent, unpublished, large-format color photographs (approx. 80 x 120 cm), produced in a very limited edition (of eight)! I will also say that these are very “Gibsonian” images. They have all been taken in “portrait” layout, and they translate Ralph Gibson’s vertical way of looking at the world. Moreover, these photographs evidence a tension between representation and abstraction, between reality and interpretation, between the background and the foreground. They highlight the idea of boundaries and opposition. They’re visual oxymorons. This is why we have decided to title the exhibition Vertical Horizon, which perfectly encapsulates these concepts.
Is Ralph Gibson a representative example of your future programming ?
Yes and no! Yes, in the sense that I hope to maintain the idea of exigency. I want to exhibit powerful images, photographs that are compelling, which make you think, and elicit complex emotions; photographs that will grow and take on new meanings over time. And no, since I believe that the gallery will blossom only by blending different genres, and that our clients’ satisfaction will be continuously renewed.
* Come back next week for another interview with Thierry. If you have any questions you’d like to ask him, don’t hesitate to share them with us via email — [email protected] — and we will include them in our next interview..
EXHIBITION
Vertical Horizon
Ralph Gibson
From June 10th to August 27th, 2016
Galerie Thierry Bigaignon
Hotel de Retz – Bâtiment A
9 rue Charlot, 75003 Paris
France
http://www.thierrybigaignon.com
http://www.ralphgibson.com
