The Hiltawsky Gallery of Berlin is currently presenting “un – deux – trois” by photographer Serge Marcel Martinot, born in Paris in 1944. he spends his childhood on the île Saint Louis in central Paris, worked in the United States then settled in Germany where he has been living in Hamburg for many years. The black and white and color pictures on display in this exhibition were taken in these three countries between 1980 and 2011.
For more than 30 years, Serge Marcel Martinot has been creating pictures in three clicks, enlarging three successive negatives. This is the basis of the story machine he has developed since 1978 when he began taking pictures aboard a boat on the Seine in Paris, trying to capture the movement in still pictures.
That is where the story began, or the multiple stories.
The photographer’s joy at experimenting the many possibilities of his reflex camera, his amusing view of the world, the stories that we, spectators, imagine in front of each changing scene.
Serge Marcel Martinot seeks to pull out the subjects off their frame; he likes them to leave his field of vision to see them at times on the left, at times on the right; he follows them, continuously amused by the surprised of life and the city.
It is an urban theater on display: the daily lives of the people in the streets, railway stations, fairs or airports, including their pets, their means of transportation. The more movement, the stronger his envy to shoot his triptyques grows.
Street photographer or stage director? Serge Marcel Martinon begin by isolating a person or a decoration in the daily urban theater, then watching how this element is played out , and transformed in animations, rhythmed by the push of his shutter. We follow the rhythm without fail: one, two, three.
Exhibition
« un – deux – trois », Serge Marcel Martinot
May 4th – June 9th, 2012
Galerie Hiltawsky
Tucholskystraße 41
10117 Berlin – Germany
Book :
« un – deux – trois », Serge Marcel Martinot
Aplanat editions, Avril 2004
