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Toulouse : Max Armengaud, Antichambre – voir et pouvoir, with details

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Until March 27th, 2016, La Grande Galerie du Château d’Eau in Toulouse is showing the exhibition Antichambre—Voir et pouvoir, avec détails (Antechamber—Seeing and Power, In detail) by  French photographer Max Armengaud. Come and discover the behind-the-scenes workings of renowned French and European institutions post-1986.

Max Armengaud’s portraits taken at the Opéra de Paris or the Prague Castle, in Vatican City or in Madrid’s Las Ventas, at the Palais de l’Élysée or the Assemblée Nationale in Paris, at the Mont-Saint-Michel, or yet at the Rugby Club in Toulon or in the Lacaune Mountains, shed light on spaces and functions that were not meant for representation, thus constructing a humanized portrait of the institution.

The anti-iconic dimension of my work is not limited to the formal treatment of the human figure. It is reinforced by the use of serial construction, where each individual portrait is a fragment of the collective portrait I am constructing.

This is not so much a question of a gallery of portraits featuring an institution, as of a portrait of that institution. The nuance is very important to me, even crucial, since it is relies on the principle of conception and realization of a work that is totally different, down to its artistic restitution. The principle in question is the rule of the three unities of the classic theater: unity of place, time, and action. At the level of historical temporality, the period of exposure is like a prolonged shutter release during which I construct a large portrait, a vast photograph-territory, made up of the accumulation of all the culled elements.

I have also included fragments of empty spaces, with no human figures, which I have interspersed among the portraits in the final construction, which helps reinforce the idea of the portrait of a place, of a territory.

The artistic restitution, in the form of a large mosaic of amalgamated images at once replays the very procedure of investigation, of encounter within encounter, of portrait within portrait, and assembles on the wall this large photograph-territory that I have just described.

In its formal treatment of the human figure and the use of serialized construction, my approach is thus characterized by a rejection of iconic representation, from a political and ethical as well as aesthetic standpoint. I am opposed to the univocal and schematic aspect of the iconic form by showing complexity, profusion, and contradiction, and offering a representation that is for the most part open to interpretation.

EXHIBITION
Antichambre – voir et pouvoir, avec détails
Max Armengaud
From January 20th to March 27th, 2016
Galerie du Chateau d’eau
1, Place Laganne
31300 Toulouse
France
+33(0)5 61 77 09 40
http://wwwgaleriechateaudeau.org
http://maxarmengaud.com

EVENEMENTS
• Meeting on wednesday 10th à 7 pm on the exhibition with Michel Enrici and Max Armengaud and book signing
• Au pied des cimaises – commented visit of the exhibitions by Jean-Marc Lacabe on wednesday 23rd at 6 pm

BOOK
Antichambre
Max Armengaud
Texts by Philippe Berling and Michel Enrici
October 2015, edition Analogues
bilingual edition (French/English)
22 x 26 cm
240 pages
36.00 €
ISBN : 978-2-35864-082-4

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