Trained as a musician and composer, French artist Céleste Boursier-Mougenot creates works by drawing on the rythms of daily life to produce sound in unexpected ways. His installation for The Curve takes the form of a walkthrough aviary for a flock of zebra finches, furnished with electric guitars and other instruments and objects. As the birds go about their routine activities, perching on or feeding from the various pieces of equipment, they create a captivating, live soundscape.
Céleste Boursier-Mougenot
New Commission for The Curve
27 February 2010 – 23 May 2010
Barbican Art Gallery
Silk St
London EC2Y 8DS Free admission
Open daily 11am-8pm
Open late every Thu until 10pm
“J’appuie sur le déclic quand je suis à l’unisson avec ce que je vois.” Izis
Sans titre, 1945-1959
En 1951, Izis est l’un des cinq French Photographers exposés au Museum of Modern Art de New York avec Brassaï, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Doisneau et Willy Ronis.
Israëlis Bidermanas nait en 1911 en Lituanie.
En 1930, fuyant les persécutions antisémites dont les Juifs sont victimes, il émigre à Paris, avec l’intention de devenir peintre. Trois ans plus tard, il dirige un studio de photographie traditionnelle dans le 13e arrondissement.
Sur les quais de la Seine, 1949
Pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, Izis se réfugie dans le Limousin mais il sera cependant arrêté et torturé par les Nazis. La Résistance le libère, il rejoint le maquis et photographie ses compagnons. Sa première exposition a lieu en 1944 lorsqu’il présente les portraits des maquisards montrés délibéremment tels quels : devant un simple fond blanc, mal habillés, non rasés, hirsutes.
Il revient à Paris après la guerre et devient reporter pour Paris Match. Il réalise des portraits de Jean Cocteau, Grace Kelly, Orson Welles, Edith Piaf, Arman…
Travailler pour Paris Match lui permet de rencontrer de nombreux artistes ou poètes. Il se lie d’amitié avec Marc Chagall, qui l’accompagne souvent pour de longues promenades à pied dans Paris. Jacques Prévert devient également un ami proche, qui signe plusieurs textes pour les ouvrages du photographe. Ses sujets de prédilection : des amoureux, des enfants en train de jouer, des ouvriers, le monde du cirque.
Métro Mirabeau, 6 heures du matin, 1949
Il n’aime pas quitter Paris mais fait cependant deux exceptions : il se rend à plusieurs reprises en Israël entre 1952 et 1954. A la même époque, il effectue plusieurs allers et retours à Londres et publie un ouvrage Charmes de Londres.
Il meurt à Paris en 1980.
Visite de la reine d’Angleterre, 1957
Artiste, reporter, portraitiste et flâneur, l’exposition qui lui rend hommage actuellement à l’Hôtel de Ville rend compte de la diversité de son travail.
Izis, Paris des Rêves, du 20 janvier au 29 mai 2010
Exposition gratuite à l’Hôtel de Ville
5, rue Lobau
75004 Paris
tous les jours de 10 à 19h sauf dimanche et jours fériés
Mardi 12 janvier, environ 20 heures. Vernissage de Personnes, le projet réalisé par Christian Boltanski pour MONUMENTA. Une foule assez chic va et vient devant l’entrée du Grand Palais. Les uns arrivent au vernissage, les autres en sortent, téléphone ou cigarette à la main. Une fois le carton d’invitation remis et les contrôles passés, c’est un mur de tiroirs qui nous fait face, imposant. Il empêche de voir l’intérieur de la nef et oblige le spectateur à le contourner par un côté ou par un autre. A l’intérieur, un vaste champ de vêtements. Ils sont posés à même le sol, organisés par petites sections carrées, qui rythment la déambulation du visiteur.
Plus loin, c’est un gigantesque tas de vêtements qui attire l’attention. Il est surmonté d’un bras mécanique qui pioche de temps à autre une poignée d’effets et les relâche aussitôt sur le tas. Le spectacle est saisissant.
On se sent ridiculement minuscule. C’est un fait, la nef du Grand Palais impressionne par ses dimensions :
longueur 200 m, largeur 50 m et 100 m, hauteur 35 m et 45 m sous le dôme, pour une superficie de 13 500 m2.
Au dehors, le froid est glacial. Pourtant Boltanski n’a pas souhaité chauffer l’endroit. “Cette installation est conçue pour produire un puissant sentiment d’oppression. Il s’agit d’une expérience dure et je suis convaincu que les gens éprouveront un soulagement en sortant.”
Si l’installation a été pensée pour se déployer principalement sur le sol, à l’horizontale donc, tout l’espace en revanche résonne de manière lancinante au son d’enregistrements de battements de coeur.
Ce bruit fait écho à un projet initié à la Maison Rouge en 2008, Les Archives du cœur. On y accède en empruntant un petit couloir, à l’écart de la nef. Les visiteurs sont invités à enregistrer le son des battements de leur cœur et d’en faire don à l’artiste. L’ensemble sera réuni dans une sonothèque sur l’île de Teshima, située dans la Mer Intérieure du Japon et mise à la disposition de Boltanski par un mécène.
Chaque année pour MONUMENTA, un artiste de renommée internationale imagine un projet original de grande envergure pour la nef du Gand Palais. Anselm Kiefer s’était prêté à l’exercice en 2007, puis ce fut le tour de Richard Serra l’année suivante.
Le Grand Palais
Conçu à l’occasion de l’Exposition Universelle de 1900 par Henri Deglane, Albert Louvet, Albert Thomas et Charles Girault, le Grand Palais est un fleuron de l’Art Nouveau. Cet édifice monumental se caractérise par une architecture alliant la pierre, l’acier et le verre.
Personnes, Grand Palais, du 13/01 au 21/02/2010
A l’initiative du Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication et de la Délégation aux Arts Plastiques. Une exposition coproduite par le Centre National des Arts Plastiques, le Grand Palais et la Réunion des Musées Nationaux.
Gorilla, 2007, huile sur toile, 100 x 80 cm, Courtesy de la galerie Annet Gelink
Kiki Lamers est une artiste peintre et photographe néerlandaise.
Elle réunit souvent les deux médiums dans son œuvre, en peignant notamment à partir de diapositives projetées sur la toile. Les sujets sont souvent des grands portraits d’enfants représentés de manière réaliste. Elle travaille avec une couche de peinture épaisse (peinture à l’huile principalement) enrichie par différents pigments.
En 2000, alors qu’elle vivait en Auvergne, elle a fait l’objet d’une procédure judiciaire pour corruption de mineurs de moins de quinze ans après avoir pris des photographies de nus d’enfants dans des positions jugées provoquées, suggestives, lascives ou obscènes. Elle et son conjoint qui avaient déposé les photos à développer chez un professionnel, ont été condamnés à huit mois de prison ferme et 5 000 € d’amende en août 2004 par le tribunal de grande instance de Cusset (Allier). Le 2 février 2005, la condamnation a été confirmée, mais transformée en prison avec sursis par la cour d’appel de Riom pour laquelle l’alibi artistique invoqué est sans pertinence. L’artiste a annoncé sa volonté de se pourvoir en cassation.
La galeriste parisienne Ghislaine Hussenot, qui avait exposé les oeuvres de Kiki Lamers il y a deux ans, dénonce un procès “grotesque“, estimant qu’il n’y a “pas le moindre soupçon de pornographie dans son travail“.
Untitled, 2009, huile sur toile, 95 x 85 cm, Courtesy de la galerie Annet Gelink
Cette histoire n’est pas sans rappeler l’affaire Présumés Innocents, d’après le titre d’une exposition présentée au CAPC de Bordeaux en 2000. Les trois commissaires de ce projet ont été récemment renvoyés devant le tribunal correctionnel de Bordeaux, alors que le Procureur de la République avait requis un non-lieu en 2008. Il leur est reproché d’avoir montré un certain nombre d’oeuvres d’artistes contemporains jugées “choquantes” qui auraient pu être vues par des mineurs, ceci malgré tous les dispositifs d’avertissement soigneusement mis en place. Ce sont les oeuvres des artistes suivants qui ont été incriminées : Elke Krystufek, Gary Gross, Ines van Lamsweerde, Cindy Sherman, Nan Goldin, Ugo Rondinone, Marlene Dumas, Paul McCarthy, Carsten Höller, Robert Mapplethorpe, Eric Fischi, Mike Kelley, Matt Collishaw, Christian Boltanski, Cameron Jamie, Joseph Bourban, Wolfgang Tillmans. Au vu de la liste, force est de constater que ces oeuvres ont été montrées ou reproduites à de nombreuses reprises et qu’elles ne constituent en aucun cas un danger pour la jeunesse.
Kiki Lamers expose actuellement et jusqu’au 24 janvier 2010 à l’Institut Néerlandais à Paris, dans le cadre du prix Jordaan-Van Heek 2010. Ce prix, qui est décerné tous les trois ans par un jury indépendant depuis 1996, récompense un artiste contemporain qui vit et travaille aux Pays-Bas.
Née à Nimegue, Pays-Bas.
Vit et travaille à Rotterdam.
Sort diplômée de l’Académie Nationale des Beaux-Arts d’Amsterdam en 1992.
Représentée par la galerie Annet Gelink, à Amsterdam. http://www.annetgelink.nl/
Ouvrage
Anna Tilroe & Dan Cameron, Kiki Lamers: Tender Age, Artimo Foundation Breda, 2002
“The reason why I do this collecting is because it is part of how I operate as a photographer: taking photographs is putting together ideas, putting together subjects…” Martin Parr (May 2009)
British documentary photographer, photojournalist and collector born in Epsom, Surrey, UK, in 1952.
He studied photography at Manchester Polytechnic from 1970 to 1973.
In 1994 he became a full member of Magnum Photographic Corporation.
He was appointed professor of photography in 2004 at the University of Wales Newport campus.
He won a large amount of prizes and awards.
Martin Parr will be curating the 2010 Photo Biennal in Brighton.
Jeu de Paume is currently showing an important exhibition dedicated to Martin Parr. Parrworld, that is to say Planète Parr in French, consists of his latest projects, as well as books and objects from his own collection.
Untitled, Mexico, 2002-2004
The show opens with memorabilia and postcards. The everyday objects gathered by Martin Parr evoke the reign of Margaret Thatcher, the Spice Girls or 9/11, all these events or phenomena are now part of the collective memory. Parr says he always tries to find the most trivial objects. The oldest postcards in Parr’s collection were printed at the end of 19th century. Postcards were always an economical way to produce imagery, whatever commercial or tourist.
Then the photography section with British social documentary shows Parr’s favourite themes. Are also displayed international photographers that have influenced him or which he feels a strong connection with.
Three films are screened upstairs: Vivian’s Hotel (1998), Think of England (1999) and It’s nice up North (2005). Then the Luxury series is displayed in two rooms. From 2004 to 2006 Martin Parr travelled everywhere attending fashion shows, luxury shops, art fairs or horse races in cities like Dubai or Moscow. This project is a study of this international jet set who is depicted by Parr with the same approach, that is to say with a lot of humour.
from Luxury, Ascot, England, 2003
The shows ends with the Guardian Cities Project. In 2008 the daily newspaper The Guardian commissioned Martin Parr to do a report on ten UK towns: Belfast, Brighton, Bristol, Cambridge, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester and Newcastle. Each town was featured in a supplement distributed free with the newspaper, comprising a text by Martin Parr evoking his memories and personal impressions, and colour photographs of the cities and the people.
The Small World series (1986-2005) is dedicated to mass tourism. It is set in a suitable way in the Tuileries Gardens, highly tourist area in Paris.
Small world series in the Tuileries Gardens, picture by the author
Since I did not interview Mr. Parr myself, here are following a few excerpts of Q & A taken on his website:
How did you start your career as a photographer?
I first got interested in photography when I was a teenager and went to visit my grandfather near Bradford. He was a keen amateur photographer and he lent me a camera and we would go out together shooting. We would come back, process the films and make prints and ever since this time I have always wanted to be a photographer.
What photographers were you influenced by in these early days?
Before college I had seen the work of Bill Brandt and Cartier-Bresson, as well as seeing copies of Creative Camera magazine with images by (Robert) Frank, (Lee) Friedlander and (Gary) Winogrand. However it was while I was at college that Bill Jay came round and showed the work of Tony Ray-Jones and this for me was a real moment of inspiration.
When and why did you change from black and white to colour?
I did do some colour within the Home Sweet Home project in the early 70s, but it wasn’t until 1982 when I moved back from Ireland that took to colour in a serious way. This was sparked off by seeing the colour work emerge from the US with photographers such as Joel Meyerowitz, William Eggleston and Stephen Shore. I had also encountered the postcards of John Hinde when I worked at Butlins in the early 70s and the bright satured colour of these had a big impact on me.
What cameras do you use?
For the 35mm it is a Nikon 60mm macro lens combined with a SB29 ring flash. This gives a shadow on both sides of the lens ad it is like a portable studio light…
For the early black and white work, it was a Leica M3 with a Makina Plaubel with a 55mm lens. I later bought a standard lens Plaubel and more recently Mamiya 7s.
I now own a small 7mgb Sony digital and a Canon 5D.
How do you achieve these bright colours?
I use amateur film, currently Fuji 400 Superior for the 6/7 cm camera and Agfa Ultra or Fuji 100 asa film for the ring flash and macro lens. This combined with flash gives very high colour saturation, there is no Photoshop used.
Do you think your work is exploitative?
I think that all photography involving people has an element of exploitation, and therefore I am no exception. However it would be a very sad world if photographers were not allowed to photograph in public places. I often think of what I photograph as a soap opera where I am waiting for the right cast to fall into place. In more recent years I have photographed much closer where bits of people and food become part of the big picture, and one advantage of this is that it means people are less recognisable.
Whose work do you admire from contemporary photographers?
I am a great fan of the work that emerged from the Becher school, indeed these photographers changed the way in which the art world viewed photography from a marginal activity to being a central player, and I guess we all benefit from this. I also like contemporaries such as Lorca diCorcia, Paul Shambroom, Joan Fontcuberta and many photographers from Japan. There are many of my colleagues in Magnum I admire like Bruce Gilden, Alec Soth, Gilles Peres and Jim Golberg.
Why did you start to make TV?
One thing I had noticed over the years was the dialogue I often had with my subjects was very entertaining, so I welcomed the chance to incorporate this into part of my work. You can see clips from some of these films on the website. I also did a video for the Pet Shop Boys in 2002.
April 2009.
Planète Parr: The Martin Parr Collection is at Jeu de Paume from 30 June until 27 September 2009 http://www.jeudepaume.org/
When you load Miranda July’s website for the first time, you can be quite surprised by the message appearing on the screen: ENTER SECRET PASSWORD
(you know the password, just clear your mind and look within. It will probably be the first word that you think of). If this doesn’t work, try looking at a candle for a few seconds).
Movie poster for Me and You and Everyone We Know, 2005
Miranda July is a filmmaker, performer and writer. Over the years she has written short stories, some of which have been published in Harper’s and in the New Yorker. No One Belongs Here More Than You was released in 2007, it is a compilation of 16 short stories.
Her first feature-length film Me and You and Everyone We Know was released in 2005: a divorced shoe salesman with 2 boys meets an eccentric artist and “Eldercab” driver. The movie is about how people manage to connect with one another in an isolating contemporary world. It won the Caméra d’Or prize in the Cannes Film Festival as well as the Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival that year.
One of the Eleven Heavy Things, Venice Biennale, 2009
Miranda July is currently exhibiting in the group show “Making Worlds” at the Venice Biennale. The piece Eleven Heavy Things consists of 11 outdoor sculptures -pedestals more exactly- where visitors can stand on and pose. Some of them are tablets with holes for body parts so people are able to create some kind of “living sculpture“. “Take a picture of yourself with a “Heavy Thing” and post it on your blog so the rest of us can see“as read on Miranda July’s website.
She was born 1974 Miranda Jennifer Grossinger and she grew up in Berkeley, California where she began her career as a teenager, writing and directing plays. At the age of seven, she wrote a trilogy called The Lost Child and started recording interviews with herself (first taping the questions and then filling in the answers).
According to IMDb, she changed her last name to July because that is the month in which she is the most productive.
She lives and works in Los Angeles.
Miranda July in conversation with Tony DuShane, July 2007
Tony DuShane: What’s your writing schedule like? Do you go to the office to write? Do you mainly work on prose or do you kind of have all of your projects going at once?
Miranda July: Usually there’s something I need to write, like one main thing… like right now it’s my next screenplay. And when it comes to creative stuff, it keeps changing where works well for me. I mean sometimes I’m writing in that little house in Echo Park and sometimes I have to write in my bed, you know. I think I’m always trying to trick myself into thinking that it’s something I just decided to do that day, and entirely my own free will. (laughs) I’m not one of those nine to five writers either. A couple of hours is a long time for me and it usually helps to have other things in the day.
TD: In your writing, I find a lot of humor and a lot of loneliness as the themes. I know it’s hard to answer: how do you get your creativity? It’s like the worst question in the world. But does a humorous anecdote come in your mind first or does that work is way out as you’re writing the story, that the humor pops in?
MJ: Often I’ll have a feeling which is sometimes a sad or desperate or some kind of unresolved feeling, and I’ll marry it to some detail from the world, and those two things combined kind of set me on a course for writing a story. I don’t know what it’s going to be about. For example, I wrote down a few things the woman behind me on the plane said. She was talking about someone who was housesitting for her and the bird had escaped and she was describing how to catch the bird and what to do with it, and just little things she said, like, “Were you watching the house when Gabriel, the dove, escaped?” and it was like these little things which, in and of themselves, it’s like I’m not just interested in people’s dialogue, but that kind of loaned to some really personal thing in myself.
TD: Where do you see yourself ten years from now?
MJ: I do feel like, just as I made short films and then I made a feature, that I would like to write a novel now that I’ve written stories. I imagine that will take forever. I’d like to keep making movies, but certainly don’t want to have it be the main thing, which is sort of a continual fight because that industry is so, um, it thinks it wants to rule the world. So the idea that you’d want to do anything else is something you have to keep insisting on in yourself. And especially like you’d want to do something like performance, which hardly anyone sees and it doesn’t make any money, you know, which is probably why I went to do that.
“Making Worlds”, curated by Daniel Birnbaum, 53rd International Art Exhibition, Venice Biennale, from 7th June to 22nd November 2009 http://www.labiennale.org/en/Home.html
books The Boy from Lam Kien, Cloverfield Press, 2005 No One Belongs Here More Than You: Stories, Scribner Publishing, 2007 Learning to Love You More (with Harrell Fletcher), Prestel Publishing, 2007
One of the Congratulations cards made by Miranda July
“There is no particular reason to search for meaning.” William Eggleston
Untitled, 1965-68
William Eggleston is literally photographing the world around him.
The current show at the Fondation Cartier in Paris was the perfect opportunity to pay tribute to the great photographer.
Three years ago, the Fondation Cartier commissioned him to photograph Paris, a city so often depicted in photography (possibly too much?). The French capital has become an icon in itself. The task was not easy, even for Eggleston who already documented Paris on different occasions. He cleverly avoids the romantic cliché by “approaching it as if it is just anywhere“, as he states in the exhibition catalogue. No famous monuments, no Parisian romantic couples kissing. Instead, almost abstract close-up photographs of graffiti, garbage and shop’s neons. 70 pictures were selected for the show at the Fondation Cartier. Eggleston says he didn’t try to avoid clichés in a conscious way. “I didn’t change my style for Paris. I just did as always, used the same approach.”
His large-format prints give credit to everyday subjects, every detail deserves attention, whatever it is a red ceiling in a friend’s house or a farmer’s Ford truck. He knows how to capture the beauty in commonplaces we even not notice. His first snapshots of everyday life in the Deep South were criticized for being “perfectly banal” though.
Since then, he is also acknowledged as a master of Color, using saturated shades since the beginning. Most surprisingly they are not studio-manipulated. “Everything must work in concert,” he says. “Composition is important but so are many other things, from content to the way colours work with or against each other.”
He supposedly never shoots a subject twice, he doesn’t want the model to strike a pose in this respect, which shows his grasp of composition.
Memphis, c. 1969-70
William Eggleston was raised mostly by his grandparents (his father being in the Navy, his parents stayed mostly at the military base). As a kid, he was first introduced to photography by his grandfather, who had his own darkroom. But he really got interested in taking pictures years later, when he attended college. In 1959 he discovered the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson with The Decisive Moment. He was impressed by the good quality of the prints and by the depiction of the subject from an oblique angle, instead of the traditional front view.
When he started using color photography in the mid-60’s, it was still the reign of black-and-white prints in the artistic context. Color photography was reserved for advertising and journalism, mainly because the clients had money to pay for the expensive developing. So it was mainly considered as a commercial medium.
Eggleston’s pictures are often taken from unconventional perspectives. The picture of a red ceiling below (which became an icon for Eggleston’s work) is a good example as our gaze unusually goes upward in the room.
Untitled (Greenwood, Mississipi), 1974
The night of the opening of his show in Paris, William Eggleston sat down in front of the piano which is displayed at the entrance of the downstairs gallery (Eggleston is an accomplished pianist). He played a few tunes then grabbed a cigarette from his pocket. It seems that Memphis’ spirit was not far away…
American photographer born 1939 in Memphis, Tenessee.
Still lives and works in Memphis, but travels considerably for his projects.
William Eggleston: Paris is at the Fondation Cartier, Paris, until June 21.
Il a étudié l’histoire de l’art, la peinture et la photographie. On lui doit de nombreux essais, publiés dans les pages des magazines d’art ou de catalogues. Il dispense également des cours d’histoire de l’art depuis plus d’une dizaine d’années dans différentes universités.
Son travail repose sur des faits historiques, en particulier sur une facette relativement méconnue de l’histoire des Etats-Unis, le lynchage. C’est un certain William Lynch (1736-1796) qui décida de « réformer » la façon dont la justice était appliquée dans l’état de Virginie pendant la guerre d’indépendance. En sa qualité de juge de paix, il instaura des procès expéditifs menant parfois à des exécutions sommaires à l’encontre des défenseurs de la couronne britannique. La loi de Lynch se répandit dans l’Ouest américain, punissant les voleurs, les tricheurs au jeu et les hors-la-loi. Le mot lynchage apparaît vers 1837, désignant un déferlement de haine raciale à l’encontre des Indiens, en dépit des lois qui les protègent, et de la population noire.
Dès la fin du XIXe siècle, de nombreuses images de lynchage ont circulé de manière légale aux Etats-Unis, et ce jusqu’en 1908, date à laquelle les services postaux américains décident d’en interdire l’envoi. Le format carte postale a facilité leur diffusion et leur commercialisation. La plupart du temps, les scènes de lynchage étaient immortalisées par des professionnels ou des amateurs. Ces images trophées attestaient alors de la présence sur les lieux de leurs auteurs. Ils avaient assisté à l’événement. En Californie, le lynchage a toujours été un acte public, ayant peu à peu pris place à la tombée de la nuit. La pendaison est toujours le moyen d’exécution le plus employé.
Gonzales-Day a entrepris un important travail de recherche et de collecte de documents historiques qui sont ensuite montrés dans le contexte de l’art contemporain. Il a choisi de se concentrer sur les lynchages dont a été victime la communauté des latinos en Californie. Il dénombre 354 cas de lynchage pour l’état de Californie entre 1850 et 1935.
The Wonder Gaze (St. James Park), 2006-2009, Courtesy de l’artiste
Pour l’exposition Spy Numbers, qui se tient au Palais de Tokyo du 28 mai au 30 août 2009, il choisit de montrer une reproduction monumentale sur papier affiche, réalisée à partir d’une photographie d’archive en noir et blanc. Un arbre se trouve au centre de l’image et une foule compacte de personnages se situe au premier plan.
Toutes les images ont un contenu brutal et bien réel. L’intervention de l’artiste sur ces images en noir et blanc consiste à en effacer le contenu horrifique, à savoir le supplicié et la corde. Seuls subsistent l’arbre qui a servi pour la pendaison ainsi que la foule des spectateurs. Tout l’enjeu du travail de Gonzales-Day est de parvenir à montrer ces images sans mettre en valeur l’événement de manière spectaculaire à nouveau. Comment montrer des atrocités ?
La question de la représentation est posée.
Il choisit de montrer l’événement par sa négation visuelle, autrement dit, son absence. Un comble pour le médium photographique qui repose avant tout sur l’observation des choses. L’image ressemble en fin de compte à une photographie de paysage aux allures fantomatiques. Son intérêt pour l’image photographique relève d’une fascination pour le signifiant, c’est-à-dire la perception d’une image par son contexte, formel ou culturel. La série des Erased Lynching est une référence directe à l’histoire du lynchage en Californie, elle-même effacée de l’histoire « officielle » de l’état. Ken Gonzales-Day produit des images d’images, en s’inscrivant néanmoins à contre-courant du flux où réel et simulacre ne parviennent plus à se distinguer l’un de l’autre.
Morrison Hotel is a name we all know.
First thing which probably would come to mind is the 1970 Doors’ album with the cover photo taken at the Morrison Hotel, located at 1246 South Hope Street in Los Angeles. The band is said to have asked the owners if they could photograph the front of the hotel and they declined. Then they supposedly took the photograph when nobody was looking.
There are actually other real hotels named Morrison Hotel. One is a fancy hotel located in Dublin, Ireland and the other is in some luxurious neighborhood of Bogotá, Colombia.
The last one is an art gallery dedicated to fine art music photography.
Founded in 2001 by former record company executive and producer Peter Blachley, former independent record store owner Rich Horowitz and music photographer Henry Diltz, The Morrison Hotel Gallery has grown to become the major brand in fine art music photography with five different galleries located in the US:
SoHo NYC Gallery
124 Prince Street
New York, NY 10012
11:00 – 6:00 (Mon – Thu)
11:00 – 7:00 (Fri – Sat)
12:00 – 6:00 (Sun)
Los Angeles Gallery
(currently relocated)
La Jolla Gallery
1230 Prospect Street
La Jolla, CA 92037
11:00 – 7:00 (Sun – Thur)
11:00 – 9:00 (Fri – Sat)
Bowery NYC Gallery
313 Bowery
New York, NY 10003
12:00 – 7:00 (Sun – Wed)
12:00 – 9:00 (Thur – Sat)
Americana Manhasset
2032 Northern Blvrd
Manhasset, NY 11030
10:00 – 6:00 (Mon – Sat)
12:00 – 6:00 (Sun)
“I was 18 when I first went under contract for Warner Brothers. As soon as I was on the film set, I’ve got the feeling cinema was the fullest and most achieved artistic expression. None art involved photography, design, architecture, music, literature until then… Movies encompassed all the art I knew.” (Conversation between Dennis Hopper and Matthieu Orléan, Dennis Hopper & le Nouvel Hollywood, La Cinémathèque française, 2008)
Edward Ruscha, 1964, silver print, Dennis Hopper collection, Los Angeles
Everybody knows about Dennis Hopper in the movie industry but I realize only a few people heard of his paintings or his photographs.
Last Fall at the Cinémathèque in Paris, the show Dennis Hopper & le Nouvel Hollywood displayed works by Hopper as well as his own contemporary art collection. On this occasion, I had the privilege to attend the screening of Out of the Blue, a 1980 film featuring and directed by Dennis Hopper which focuses on a rebellious teenage girl, her ex-convict father and her drug addict mother. The title was inspired by a song by his close friend Neil Young.
Visiting the exhibition, I was struck by the fact that Hopper has digested all the major artistic trends of the XXth century: Pop Art, Marcel Duchamp, Collage, Abstract Expressionism, Photojournalism…
After the Fall, 1961-1964, mixed media, Dennis Hopper collection, Los Angeles
Mr. Hopper’s arty bio
1945: the young Hopper moves to Missouri and starts acting and painting at the Nelson Art Gallery
1953: meets actor Vincent Price who becomes his mentor and introduced him to Modern Art. Dennis Hopper recalls: “When Vincent Price showed me his collection, I was both dismayed and relieved. Until now I thought my paintings were peculiar and suddenly I realized they follow the tradition of Abstract Expressionism, which I only heard of at the time”
1955: meets James Dean on the set of Rebel Without a Cause who encouraged him to do photography
1959: spends some time in New York after being banned from Hollywood (he got into a confrontation with an influent director). On location he takes black and white photographs to improve composition. At the time he admits being influenced by Robert Capa
1961: almost 300 works are destroyed in the fire of his Bel Air house. Hopper is devastated and stops painting. Shortly after he bought some Pop Art: a Mona Lisa and a $75 Campbell Soup by Warhol Double Standard was shot that year. It is a photograph of a street junction in Los Angeles with a billboard at its center where we can read Smart women cook with gas in balanced power homes. Hopper admits being inspired and struck by LA’s driving culture and its huge billboards
Double Standard, 1961, silver print, Dennis Hopper collection, Los Angeles
1964: first solo show of some of his mixed media works in Los Angeles. At the same time he goes by the nickname The Tourist because he always carries a camera. He takes photographs of movie stars and artists such as Jane Fonda, Paul Newman, Ed Ruscha, Robert Rauschenberg
Paul Newman, 1964, silver print, Dennis Hopper collection, Los Angeles
1967: gives up photography when Easy Rider, his first movie as director, went into production. “I didn’t take any photographs because I was acting and directing a movie and I didn’t know what to do with the camera”
1971: opens a theater and an art gallery in Taos, New Mexico, where he just moved in
1972: shots twice at a Warhol’s Mao he bought previously
around 1990 he gets back to photography after he purchased a Nikon camera. He does mainly abstract photographs; the new thing being color photographs.
2000: designs vinyl billboards from his 60’s photos
from 2005 he uses digital cameras exclusively
American actor/director born 1936 in Kansas, USA.
He is currently living and working in Venice, California.
books: Dennis Hopper: Paintings, Photographs, Films, NAi Publishers/Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 2001 Dennis Hopper: Photographs from 1961-1967, Dennis Hopper, Art Pub Inc., 1993
