Julian Opie

The work of Julian Opie is so recognizable.
His imagery is graphic, simplified and schematized. And the use of bright flat colours has become a brand mark.
Everyday life is dominated by images and Opie says he finds inspiration in the everyday world. His influences are various, such as classical portraiture, comic books and computer games.
He has a methodological approach with the drawing at the core of his work. An image usually becomes a sculpture, an animated film, a postcard, a CD cover, a screensaver or many other multiple forms. He is making images with existing images, extending some of the projects he is working on, into any other medium.
“The first drawings were very simple, but that gave me a language on which to build. They started as black and white, with very pared-down parameters -the mouth was just a straight line and so on- and bit by bit I adjusted it until it seemed like the right balance between someone real and this generic form.” from Julian Opie (J.O.), Tate Gallery publication, 2004

Graham, Dave, Alex, Damon, 2000

THE PORTRAIT
Opie is exhibiting his portraits since 2000. At the time they were close-up portraits with front-facing heads and shoulders like on the Best of Blur album cover. Men and women of all races and ages are depicted in Opie’s portraits. Title features first name and occupation, which also avoids distance with the depicted subject.
The pictures are apparently simple, with the trademark for his portraits involving a black circle to represent the pupil. Specific individuals are displayed with a generic pattern. The style could easily remind us Hergé’s Tintin comics, especially in the way the pupil is depicted.
The personal characteristics that distinguish every human face have been omitted. Julian Opie has reduced the image down to its essential forms.
It is always the same method, with the use of computer-drawing programme.
We ask ourselves: What is a portrait ? What are the specific elements that make a person unique ?
“People are quite self conscious when I photograph them, which is embarrassing in the photo but helps to give life and presence to a painting. When I’m drawing, I feel like everyone’s face is fabulous. I don’t know if this is also true of bodies. I try to make a universal symbol for each individual I draw.” Julian Opie for the British Council, 2001.

Bijou, model, 2004

HOW TO CREATE A JULIAN OPIE PORTRAIT?
I found a method in www.mancubist.co.uk, a website dedicated to the city of Manchester.
http://www.mancubist.co.uk/2006/09/01/how-to-create-a-julian-opie-portrait

Julian Opie is born in 1958. He is currently working and living in London.
He is exhibiting his work with both solo and group exhibitions since 1982, after he graduated rom the Goldsmith’s school of Art in London.

official website:
http://www.julianopie.com/

online shop:
http://www.julianopieshop.com/

art galleries:
Lisson Gallery
http://www.lissongallery.com/

Alan Cristea Gallery
http://www.alancristea.com/

Blood by Ben Darlington, graphic art student from Dorset, England

Found in the website www.woostercollective.com (dedicated to celebrating ephemeral art placed on streets around the world)

Jeremy Deller (version française)

« C’est ce que j’essaie de faire ressortir dans mon travail : le plaisir que j’ai à faire ce que je fais. » (interview pour Tate online, Turner Prize, 2004)

Né en 1966.
Basé à Londres.
En 1992, il obtient un Master en Histoire de l’Art  à l’Université du Sussex.
Il était auparavant au Courtauld Institute of Art à Londres, d’où il sort diplômé en 1988, spécialisé en architecture et en Baroque.
Alors qu’il est encore étudiant, il commence à intervenir dans la spère publique en placardant des posters d’expositions qu’il aurait souhaité visiter.
En 1986, il rencontre Andy Warhol lors d’un vernissage de ses autoportraits à Londres. Ce dernier l’invite à venir séjourner deux semaines à la Factory.
En 1993, alors que ses parents se sont absentés pour deux semaines, il décide d’organiser une exposition dans sa propre chambre. Open Bedroom se constituait d’une série de douze peintures de Keith Moon (premier batteur du groupe The Who, mort d’une overdose de médicaments à l’âge de 32 ans).
Il réalise des t-shirts portant des inscriptions telles que MY DRUG SHAME ou MY BOOZE HELL (Robbie Williams a d’ailleurs porté ce modèle lors d’une émission pour enfants, montrant à cette occasion un certain degré d’auto dérision, “booze” étant le terme familier pour désigner l’alcool).
Il est récompensé du Turner Prize pour Memory Bucket en 2004.
En 2007, il est nommé pour siéger au conseil d’administration de la Tate Gallery.

Les quatre projets qui suivent font tous référence à des aspects de l’histoire anglaise ou à sa culture. L’intérêt de Deller pour l’Histoire ou la culture vernaculaire s’y ressent. D’aucuns diront qu’il fait ce que l’on nomme de l’art socialement engagé. Pour ma part, le terme social ne me semble pas approprié. Deller agit plutôt comme un catalyseur, essayant de montrer les connections existant entre les choses.

ACID BRASS
1997
« L’idée était simple : faire jouer par une fanfare traditionnelle une sélection de morceaux d’Acid House. » Jeremy Deller (livret du CD d’Acid Brass)

The History of the World, 1997-2004, wall painting, Courtesy de Art: Concept, Paris

Initié il y a plus de dix ans comme une collaboration musicale entre Jeremy Deller et la fanfare de Manchester, Williams Fairey, Acid Brass se réfère à l’histoire récente de la Grande Bretagne, d’un point de vue social et industriel. Il y est question du déclin de l’industrie sous le régime libéral de Margaret Thatcher.
D’un côté, les fanfares d’usine, héritées des conglomérats industriels du Nord de l’Angleterre (on encourageait les ouvriers à jouer dans les fanfares afin d’éviter qu’ils aillent au pub).
Et de l’autre, la musique acid house, venue de Chicago, qui émerge au milieu des années 80. Thatcher mène alors une politique sévère, obligeant les clubs à fermer leurs portes à deux heures du matin. Cela incite les clubbers à prolonger leurs fêtes de manière clandestine dans des usines désaffectées. Le phénomène des rave parties était né.
Les fanfares et l’acid house sont des formes de musique populaire, toutes deux fortement implantées dans le Nord de l’Angleterre. Elles sont en cela étroitement liées à la culture de la classe ouvrière. Pour le projet Acid Brass, elles sont associées en tant que symboles : un monde qui disparaît alors qu’un autre est en train d’émerger.
Depuis 1997, la fanfare Williams Fairey a joué Acid Brass à de nombreuses reprises en Angleterre et dans toute l’Europe, contribuant ainsi à la diffusion de l’œuvre.

STEAM POWERED INTERNET COMPUTER
2006
Jeremy Deller et Alan Kane

Steam Powered Internet Computer, 2006, Courtesy du Modern Institute, Glasgow

Au beau milieu d’un champ dans le Kent, on pouvait utiliser un Macintosh, alimenté par une machine à vapeur.
La révolution industrielle et la révolution digitale, ici mises en relation de manière peu commune.
« Nous nous trouvons actuellement à un tournant dans l’histoire de l’Angleterre, à la fin d’une ère. » Jeremy Deller (The Guardian, 11/07/2006)

THE BATTLE OF ORGREAVE
2001
sur une idée de Jeremy Deller, réalisé par Mike Figgis et produit par Artangel
“En mars 1984, l’Union Nationale des Mineurs se mit en grève. Le 18 juin, un affrontement des plus violents opposa grévistes et police près de la cokerie d’Orgreave. 15 000 personnes auraient été impliquées. » (extrait du film)

The Battle of Orgreave, 2001, Courtesy de Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, NY

Margaret Thatcher, Premier Ministre au moment des faits, est véritablement partie en guerre contre le Syndicat britannique des Mineurs. Le combat, qui fut l’un des plus violents de l’histoire de la contestation ouvrière en l’Angleterre, est ici rejoué.
Jeremy Deller puise dans la tradition anglaise, en effet, le fait de rejouer un évènement historique est très populaire en Angleterre.
Il a fallu trois ans pour concrétiser ce projet qui est en soi un travail de mémoire collective. On compte environ un millier de participants, parmi lesquels des habitants de la région, des figurants travaillant pour des agences de reconstitution d’événements historiques et enfin des mineurs qui ont rejoué un évènement traumatisant de leur vie.
A la différence des batailles qui ont eu lieu dans l’Antiquité ou au Moyen Age, Orgreave fait partie de l’histoire contemporaine. Mais cela montre aussi à quel point certains événements sont vite oubliés.
Le film n’était pas une fin en soi, c’est plutôt l’événement public qui intéressait Deller, et la façon dont il avait été déformé par les médias au moment des faits.
Son intérêt était moins de rejouer l’événement afin de guérir les consciences que d’apporter un dialogue sur celui-ci. Il voulait que les gens s’en souviennent, pas seulement ceux qui avait vécu Orgreave, mais tous les autres, l’opinion publique y comprise.

FOLK ARCHIVE
1998 à 2005
Jeremy Deller et Alan Kane
Définir Folk Archive n’est pas chose facile. Il pourrait s’agir d’une collection d’objets du quotidien et de traditions du Royaume-Uni : des objets faits main, des sculptures de légumes, un éléphant mécanique, des fêtes de village…

Folk Archive, vue de l’exposition “D’une révolution à l’autre”, Courtesy du Palais de Tokyo, 2008
Photo : Marc Domage

Le point de départ de Folk Archive était d’essayer de montrer certains aspects de la vie anglaise et de sa créativité, absents des cérémonies d’inauguration du Millenium Dome. Les deux artistes se sont toujours intéressés à ce que les gens pouvaient créer en dehors des traditionnels cercles artistiques. Comme le souligne Deller, “Folk Archive se rapporte aux gens qui sont complètement passionnés par ce qu’ils font et qui aiment ce qu’ils font (…) Cela concerne les obsessions et les intérêts des gens.” (conférence Deller & friends, Palais de Tokyo, 02/10/2008).
Le fonds constitutif de Folk Archive n’est pas issu de la culture de la société de consommation, tous les objets ont été créés de manière spontanée, sans intention de profit. Ils n’ont d’ailleurs aucune valeur financière à priori.
L’adjectif folk en Grande Bretagne a une connotation péjorative : il représente tout ce qui n’est pas urbain, donc tout ce qui est inintéressant. C’est d’ailleurs probablement pour cette raison que Jeremy Deller et Alan Kane ont choisi cet adjectif, pour essayer de reconsidérer son sens de manière plus large.
C’est un procédé qui n’a aucune limitation dans le temps, cela peut continuer encore et encore.
Le British Council en a fait l’acquisition en 2007.

Les trois projets ci-dessous ont vu le jour alors que Jeremy Deller se trouvait aux Etats-Unis. Le voyage est important car il génère des rencontres. Le studio n’est pas son territoire de prédilection, il préfère travailler à l’extérieur, essayant de relier des choses ou des événements avec des groupes humains. Il s’intéresse aux connections existant entre les lieux, le temps (passé et présent) et les personnes (individus et groupes).

VETERAN’S DAY PARADE: THE END OF THE EMPIRE
2002, 14’10”, DVD, coul., son.

Veteran’s Day Parade, the End of the Empire, 2002, Courtesy de Art: Concept, Paris

Novembre 2001, jour des vétérans américains à Amargossa Valley au Nevada : la caméra de Jeremy Deller filme les chars et les voitures des différentes communautés qui défilent lentement.
Ce défilé en hommage des soldats américains morts au combat a lieu une fois par an.
Cette vidéo fait partie d’un ensemble de documents produits par Jeremy Deller lors d’un séjour aux Etats-Unis en 2001.

AFTER THE GOLDRUSH
2002, livre et CD

Untitled (After the Goldrush), 2003, Courtesy de Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, NY

Il est resté en résidence pendant un an au CCAC Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts de San Francisco. Sur place, il a acheté une vieille Jeep qu’il a customisée avec des autocollants pour voitures. Ces autocollants sont une véritable tradition aux Etats-Unis pour exprimer ses idées ou son appartenance à une communauté. Deller les voit comme un possible substitut à la conversation dans un pays où les gens passent une grande partie de leur temps en voiture.
Quelques morceaux choisis : “God Bless America” (Dieu bénisse l’Amérique), “Keep your rosaries off my ovaries” (Eloignez vos rosaires de mes ovaires), “Bush : Texas homegrown dope” (Bush : imbécile du Texas).
L’idée d’un guide sur la Californie du Nord lui est venue naturellement alors qu’il avait rassemblé de nombreux documents, photographies et témoignages d’individus rencontrés en chemin. Il en résulte évidemment un contenu beaucoup plus personnel puisque l’ouvrage est conçu comme un livre de chasse au trésor. Le lecteur peut s’il le souhaite partir à la recherche des gens que Jeremy a rencontré, parmi lesquels Alan Laird (ex-Black Panther qui possède à présent une galerie d’art) ou Dixie Evans (sosie de Marilyn Monroe, danseuse et propriétaire du Musée Burlesque Exotic World). Chacun d’entre eux donne l’opportunité de se remémorer certaines pages de l’Histoire des Etats-Unis. Bien évidemment, le titre est à la fois une référence à la ruée vers l’or qui débuta au milieu du XIXe siècle avec l’immigration massive, et à un album de Neil Young sorti en 1970.
Le guide s’articule autour de cinq endroits, de Oakland jusqu’au désert Mojave où Jeremy Deller a fait l’acquisition d’une parcelle de désert pour 2000 Dollars lors d’une vente aux enchères. Il tenait à conserver une partie du pays avant de partir. Ce moment a été enregistré et c’est d’ailleurs la première piste du CD, qui propose par ailleurs des morceaux de William E. Whitmore, un joueur de banjo.

MEMORY BUCKET – A FILM ABOUT TEXAS
2004, 28’39”, DVD, coul., son.

Helotes, 2004, Courtesy de Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, NY

Il était en résidence pendant deux mois à San Antonio au Texas lorsqu’il a réalisé ce film. Les rencontres et les témoignages se déroulent à deux endroits chargés sur le plan politique :
– Waco où le FBI a ordonné l’assaut du ranch des Davidiens après 51 jours de siège (rappelons que l’utilisation d’armes militaires contre des civils est supposée être illégale aux Etats-Unis).
– Crawford, où George W. Bush est domicilié car il y possède un ranch.
Deller le considère comme un film sur le Texas. Notre point de vue européen pourrait facilement avoir des clichés en tête lorsqu’il s’agit du Texas : des cowboys sur leurs chevaux devant un ranch par exemple. Mais ce parti pris est évité de manière très simple et très efficace. Deller a préféré recueillir les témoignages d’habitants de la région, comme celui d’un survivant de Waco, et il y a mêlé des images d’archives.
En 2002, lorsqu’il a tourné le film, le gouvernement Bush était encore très populaire. Certains ont cru déceler dans Memory Bucket une sorte d’anti-américanisme. Ce n’est pas le cas, Deller s’est efforcé d’établir des connections entre Crawford, ville patriotique et Waco, prise en état de siège par le gouvernement américain.
Il accorde la même attention à la patronne d’un café restaurant ravie que Bush soit venu dans son établissement qu’à cette femme quaker, farouchement opposée à la guerre en Irak.
Jeremy Deller a du mal à le considérer comme un documentaire : il s’agirait plutôt d’un journal vidéo selon lui. Le titre est emprunté à un magasin situé à Helotes, dans le Sud du Texas. Le film s’ouvre d’ailleurs sur un plan de la façade du magasin.
Memory Bucket rassemble différents éléments constitutifs du travail de Jeremy : c’est un film de type documentaire, il implique le voyage et la résidence, des interviews ont été menées et enfin, il existe cette interaction entre des individus et des identités collectives.
A la fin du film, la caméra capture les images d’un phénomène naturel qui se produit quotidiennement à la tombée de la nuit : des milliers de chauve-souris s’envolant de la grotte Bracken. Elles ne sont pas là par hasard. En effet, la ville d’Austin au Texas est également connue pour abriter la plus importante colonie de chauve-souris vivant en milieu urbain (et je soupçonne par ailleurs M. Deller d’avoir un faible pour ces animaux : voir le projet Bat House ci-après). A ce stade, le film en devient presque une peinture abstraite; il n’y a pas de conclusion (au sens traditionnel du terme en tout cas) car aucune solution n’est proposée. C’est la folie humaine qui est en quelque sorte le sujet du film, et c’est assez déprimant. La séquence avec les chauve-souris évoque le Romantisme du XIXe siècle. La chauve-souris était alors fréquemment employée en littérature ou chez les peintres Préraphaélites comme John Everett Millais.

Untitled (Bats), Courtesy de Art: Concept, Paris

Les deux projets suivants se concentrent sur l’appartenance à une communauté ou à un clan. Ils ont supposé la collaboration avec des fans dans les deux cas. Jeremy Deller s’intéresse ici à l’interaction existant entre l’individu et un groupe.

THE USES OF LITERACY
1997
“Cher ami / fan
Je suis actuellement en train de collecter des documents pour une exposition sur les Manics l’an prochain. Si vous êtes intéressés pour y prendre part ou pour obtenir plus d’information, n’hésitez pas à me contacter. Merci.
Jeremy”
Ce projet est une collaboration entre Jeremy Deller et les fans du groupe de rock Manic Street Preachers. Deller a rassemblé un ensemble de peintures, dessins et poèmes réalisés par les fans.
Le titre est tiré de l’ouvrage de Richard Hoggart La Culture du Pauvre, qui présente un caractère autobiographique et qui déplore la perte d’une vraie culture populaire en Angleterre.
Ce projet utilise ce qui avait été créé dans l’intimité d’une chambre d’adolescent pour le montrer dans un contexte public au moyen d’une exposition et d’un livre.
Deller explore et questionne la relation complexe entre les artistes et le public.
Il a également co-réalisé avec Nick Abrahams le vidéo clip Found That Soul, pour les Manic Street Preachers. On y retrouve le groupe en train de jouer, des fans plongés dans la lecture de livres et des chauve-souris, le tout filmé en images infrarouges.

OUR HOBBY IS DEPECHE MODE / THE POSTERS CAME FROM THE WALLS
co-réalisé par Jeremy Deller et Nick Abrahams
2006, 72′, produit par Brown Owl Film pour Mute / EMI
“Je ne crois pas qu’il existe un autre chanteur au monde qui suscite autant l’intérêt que Dave Gahan de Depeche Mode, en tout cas en Russie. On lui voue quasiment un véritable culte. Durant les six derniers mois, j’ai réalisé un documentaire sur les fans de Depeche Mode avec mon collaborateur Nick Abrahams. Nous avons voyagé en Europe et jusqu’au Mexique, mais les Russes étaient vraiment les plus passionnés.” Jeremy Deller (The Observer, 15/10/2006)

Depeche Mode étant célèbre dans le monde entier depuis plusieurs décennies, il n’y avait aucune utilité à réaliser un documentaire de plus sur leur carrière. Les auteurs ont choisi de se concentrer sur leurs fans et la manière dont ils expriment leur passion pour le groupe et leur musique. Le tout variant selon le contexte politique, économique ou social.
Le public mexicain est particulièrement intéressé par l’aspect religieux des chansons. En Iran, un fan est heureux de montrer quelques cassettes pirates qu’il a pu se procurer. Dans l’ex-URSS qui interdisait la vente d’objets dérivés du groupe, les fans se fabriquent eux-mêmes des t-shirts, des badges ou des boutons.
Le documentaire a été projeté au Festival du Film de Londres en octobre 2008, mais aucune date de sortie n’est prévue pour le moment.

Ce qui rend le travail de Jeremy Deller si particulier, c’est aussi le fait qu’il ne semble pas préoccupé par le marché de l’art. En effet, il conçoit des projets à grande échelle, qui ne sont pas facilement commercialisables. Il s’engage d’ailleurs la plupart du temps sur des projets à long terme comme :

SPEAK TO THE EARTH AND IT WILL TELL YOU
Le titre rappelle le sac en plastique rose qu’il avait créé pour la foire d’art contemporain Frieze en 2003 : Speak to the Earth and it will show you.
Il s’agit dans ce cas d’une collaboration avec Skulptur Projekte Münster 2007. Le phénomène des jardins associatifs n’avait probablement pas échappé à Jeremy Deller alors qu’il séjournait à Münster, en Allemagne. Ils ont du lui sembler typiquement Allemands, en tout cas pour lui qui est Anglais.
Chacune des 54 associations de jardins partagés a reçu un carnet. Il leur est demandé de consigner par écrit toute information, qu’elle présente un caractère social, environnemental ou botanique et ce, jusqu’à la prochaine édition de Skulptur Projekte, en 2017. Histoires individuelles et histoires collectives sont au coeur de ce projet.
http://www.skulptur-projekte.de/

THE BAT HOUSE PROJECT
Un concours initié en 2007 pour créer un abri pour les chauve-souris de Londres.
http://www.bathouseproject.org/

livres / musique :
Folk Archive : Contemporary Popular Art from the UK, Jeremy Deller & Alan Kane, Book Works, Londres, 2005,160 pages
After the Goldrush, Jeremy Deller, Editions CCAC, San Francisco, Californie, 2002, 96 pages & CD
The Uses of Literacy, Jeremy Deller, Book Works, Londres, 1999, 48 pages
The English Civil War Part II, Personal accounts of the 1984-85 miner’s strike, Jeremy Deller, Artangel, 2002, 160 pages & CD
Life is to Blame for Everything : Collected Works & Projects, 1992-1999, Jeremy Deller, Salon 3, 2001, 96 pages
Acid Brass, The Williams Fairey Band, CD, Blast First / Mute Records, 1997

liens :
site de Jeremy Deller :
http://www.jeremy-deller.co.uk/
ou
http://www.jeremydeller.org/

Folk Archive :
http://www.britishcouncil.org/arts-aad-folk-archive.ht

Film sur les fans de Depeche Mode à travers le monde :
http://www.theposterscamefromthewalls.com/

galeries :
Art: Concept (Paris)
http://www.galerieartconcept.com/
Gavin Brown’s Enterprise (New York)
http://www.gavinbrown.biz/
the Modern Institute (Glasgow)
http://www.themoderninstitute.com/

sac plastique distribué au public de la foire d’art contemporain Frieze en 2003, Courtesy de Art: Concept, Paris

Jeremy Deller

“That’s something that I try to bring out in my work: a sense of enjoyment of what I do.”
(interview for Tate online, Turner Prize, 2004)

Born in 1966.
London based.
1992: MA in Art History, Sussex University.
1988: BA in Art History, Courtauld Institute of Art. He majored in Architecture and Baroque.
While still studying he began to make little interventions in the public area, such as sticking up posters of exhibitions he wished he could have visited.
1986: meets Andy Warhol at an opening in London who invited him to come to the Factory for a two-week stay.
1993: he displayed his first exhibition at home while his parents were on holiday. Open Bedroom included twelve Keith Moon paintings (The Who’s first drummer who died from medicine abuse at age 32).
Designed T-shirts with explicit messages such as MY DRUG SHAME and MY BOOZE HELL (the latter of which Robbie Williams was spotted wearing at a children’s TV show, showing a surprising level of self-mockery).
Awarded the Turner Prize in 2004 for Memory Bucket.
Was appointed a Trustee of the Tate Gallery in 2007.

The four projects listed below deal with aspects of British history or British culture. Deller’s interest for History and vernacular culture is palpable. Some say he’s doing socially engaged art. I do not like the term social, Deller is more acting as a catalyst to me, trying to show the existing connections between things.

ACID BRASS
1997
“The idea was a simple one; to get a traditional brass band to play a selection of Acid House anthems” Jeremy Deller (leaflet of the Acid Brass CD)

The History of the World, 1997-2004, wall painting, Courtesy of Art: Concept, Paris

Started more than ten years ago as musical collaboration between Jeremy Deller and the Manchester’s Williams Fairey Brass Band, Acid Brass refers to Great Britain’s recent history on a social and industrial basis, in relation to the collapse of industry under the liberal regime of Margaret Thatcher.
On one side you’ll find the brass bands, legacy from the industrial conglomerates in North England (the workers were encouraged to gather in brass bands to avoid alcoholism).
In the mid-eighties emerges Chicago’s acid house music. Because of Thatcher’s severe politic, clubs were required to close at two am. In challenge to this, clubbers sometimes organized parties in disused factories: rave parties were born.
Both brass bands and acid house are popular music forms, spread especially in North England. In this respect they are linked to the working class culture. In the Acid Brass project they were combined as symbols: one for a dying era and the other for an emerging one.
Since 1997 the Williams Fairey Brass Band has played Acid Brass many times in England and all across Europe, thereby contributing to its spreading.

STEAM POWERED INTERNET COMPUTER
2006, Jeremy Deller and Alan Kane

Steam Powered Internet Computer, 2006, Courtesy of the Modern Institute, Glasgow

In the middle of a field in Kent you could actually use an Apple Mac powered by a steam engine. The two perfect symbols for industrial revolution and digital revolution put in some unlikely connection. “We’re at a certain point in British history, at the end of something“, says Deller (The Guardian, July 11, 2006)

THE BATTLE OF ORGREAVE
2001, initiated by Jeremy Deller, filmed by Mike Figgis and commissioned by Artangel.
“In March 1984, the National Union of Mineworkers went on strike.
On the 18th June that year, one of the most violent clashes between picketing miners and police took place near the Orgreave coking plant.
Estimates vary but as many as 15 000 people are thought to have been involved.” (taken from the film)

The Battle of Orgreave, 2001, Courtesy of Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, NY

Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister at the time, launched what we can call a civil war against the National Union of Mineworkers. The fight was one of the most violent in the history of workers protest.
Jeremy Deller organized a reenactment of the event, (historical reenactments are a popular British tradition). It took three years to complete this project, a work of collective memory, staged with about a thousand participants including local people, members of amateur historical reenactment groups and minors involved in the battle who recreated a traumatic moment of their lives.
Unlike the battles that happened in Antiquity or in the Middle Ages, Orgreave is part of contemporary history. But it also argues that some events could be quickly forgotten. The film wasn’t the main goal in fine, Deller was more interested in the public event, the way it was deformed by the media at the time. He didn’t want The Battle of Orgreave to be part of a healing process, he rather wished to bring a dialog on the subject. He wanted the people to remember, not just the ones who experienced Orgreave, but all the others, the public opinion.

FOLK ARCHIVE
1998-2005, Jeremy Deller and Alan Kane
To define Folk Archive is not easy. It could be seen as a collection of everyday objects and traditions in the UK: hand objects, vegetable sculptures, a mechanical elephant, village processions…

Folk Archive, exhibition view “D’une révolution à l’autre”, Courtesy of the Palais de Tokyo, 2008.
Picture by Marc Domage

The starting point for Folk Archive was an attempt to show aspects of British life and creativity, different from the corporate vision of the Millennium Dome celebration. The two have always been interested in what people could create outside traditional artistic circles. As Deller states, “Folk Archive is about people who are absolutely obsessed with what they do and love what they do (…) It’s about people’s obsessions and interests.” (Deller & friends talk, Palais de Tokyo, October 02, 2008).
All the things constituting Folk Archive are anti-consumer culture, they were done spontaneously, without any profit-making intent and they have no financial value.
Folk is overtone pejorative in Great Britain: it represents everything outside the urban life that is to say everything uninteresting. That is probably why Deller and Kane picked the word, in an attempt to reassess the term folk in its wide definition.
There is no deadline; it’s an ongoing work.
The British Council acquired it in 2007.

The following three projects were done while Jeremy Deller was in the US. Travelling is important because it produces meetings with new people. He is not a studio-type artist; he is working outside, focusing on linking things or events with people. He is interested in the connection between places, time (past and present) and people (individual and collective).

VETERAN’S DAY PARADE: THE END OF THE EMPIRE
2002, 14’10”, DVD, col, son

Veteran’s Day Parade, the End of the Empire, 2002, Courtesy of Art: Concept, Paris

November 2001, Veteran’s Day in Amargossa Valley, Nevada: Jeremy Deller is filming the floats and the cars of the different communities.
Veteran’s Day happens once a year and pays tribute to the American soldiers killed in the line of duty.
This video is part of different pieces of work Deller produced while staying in the US in 2001.

AFTER THE GOLDRUSH
2002, book and CD

Untitled (After the Goldrush), 2003, Courtesy of Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, NY

He spent a year in residency at the CCAC Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts in San Francisco. On the spot he bought an old Jeep soon customized with bumper stickers. Bumper stickers are part of American culture to express ideas or the belonging to some community. Deller believes they are a possible substitute for proper conversation in a country where people spend a lot of time in their cars. A few ones: “God Bless America“, “Keep your rosaries off my ovaries“, “Bush: Texas homegrown dope“.
The idea of a guidebook of North California came naturally to him as he was collecting many documents, photographs and accounts given by people he met. The result is obviously much more personal as it is shaped as a treasure hunting book. There is an opportunity for the reader to look for the people Jeremy has met, including among others Alan Laird (ex-Black Panthers who now runs an art gallery) and Dixie Evans (Marilyn Monroe look-alike, dancer and owner of the Exotic World Burlesque Museum). Each of them is an opportunity to recall a few events of U.S. history. Of course the title refers to the California Gold Rush that began in the mid-XIXth century with mass immigration, and also to a 1970 album by Neil Young.
The guide is organized around a five-stop journey from Oakland to the Mojave Desert where he bought a piece of land for 2000$ at an auction before leaving the country. It was recorded and it’s actually the first track on the CD, which also features songs by William E. Whitmore, a banjo player.

MEMORY BUCKET – A FILM ABOUT TEXAS
2004, 28’39”, DVD, col, son

Helotes, 2004, Courtesy of Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, NY

He did the film while on a two months residency in San Antonio, Texas. Meetings and interviews are based on two locations much politically charged:
– Waco where the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) launched an attack on the Branch Davidian ranch during a 51-day siege. (let’s remember that it is supposedly illegal to use military weapons against civilians in the U.S.).
– Crawford, hometown of George W. Bush who also owns a ranch there.
According to the artist, it’s a film about Texas. Our European outlook may think obviously about cowboys riding horses in front of their ranch when it comes to Texas but Deller avoids this cliché in a very simple and effective way. He conducted interviews with local people, including a Waco survivor, put together with TV files.
In 2002 when Deller shot the film, the Bush Administration was still very popular. Some people thought they detected some anti-Americanism in Memory Bucket. Beyond the fact that such criticism is not particularly relevant, Deller’s intent was to make some connections between a patriotic town such as Crawford and Waco, a city besieged by the U.S. government.
He gives much attention to the happy enthusiastic owner of a coffee shop, where Bush habited, as an old Quaker lady who disapproves the Iraq war.
Jeremy Deller hardly reckons that it is a documentary; it is more a video diary according to him. The title is taken from a scrapbook store located in Helotes, in the south of Texas, which can be seen as the opening shot of the film.
Memory Bucket holds some features of Jeremy’s work: looks like a documentary, involves travel and residency, interviews conducted and finally interaction between individual and collective identities.
At the end of the film the camera records a natural phenomenon, which happens on a daily basis at twilight: thousand of bats emerging from the Bracken Cave and flying off. Bats are not in the film by chance: Austin, Texas is also well known to have the world’s largest urban bat colony (and I suspect Mr. Deller to have a crush on bats as well: see below The Bat House Project link). The film almost becomes an abstract painting at this point ; there is no conclusion (at least in the traditional meaning of the word) because no solution is stated here. In some ways the whole film is about human craziness and it is quite sad. On the other hand bats come and bring to mind the XIXth century Romanticism when they were frequently depicted in writings or Pre-Raphaelites paintings such as the John Everett Millais ones.

Untitled (Bats), 2004, Courtesy of Art: Concept, Paris

The following two projects focus on the belonging to a community or clan. Here are collaborations with groups of individuals, fans in both cases. He is interested in the interaction existing between a single individual in regards to a group of people.

THE USES OF LITERACY
1997
“Dear Friend / Fan
I’m currently collecting material for a Manics exhibition next year. If you are interested in taking part or you need more information please get in touch. Thanks. Jeremy”
This project is collaboration between Jeremy Deller and the fans of rock band Manic Street Preachers. Deller has gathered a collection of paintings, drawings and poems made by the fans.
The title is taken from Richard Hoggart’s The Uses of Literacy, a mostly autobiographical book that also deplores the loss of some real popular culture in England.
What has been conceived in the intimacy of a teenager’s bedroom was put into the public sphere with an exhibition and a book release.
Deller explores and investigates the complex relationship between artists and the audience.
He also co-directed with Nick Abrahams on the MSP video Found That Soul which included infrared pictures of the band playing, supposed fans reading books and bats.

OUR HOBBY IS DEPECHE MODE / THE POSTERS CAME FROM THE WALLS
co- directed by Jeremy Deller and Nicholas Abrahams
2006, 72′, a Brown Owl Film for Mute / EMI
“I don’t think there’s another lead singer in the world who has the kind of following that Dave Gahan of Depeche Mode enjoys in Russia. It’s like a benevolent cult. For the last six months, my colleague Nick Abrahams and I have been making a film about Depeche fans, and we’ve travelled from Europe to Mexico, but the Russians were the most passionate.” Jeremy Deller (The Observer, October 15, 2006)

Depeche Mode has been famous all over the world for decades; there was really no need for another documentary on their career. The authors chose to focus on their fans and how they expressed their love of the band and the music in different ways, depending on the political, economical and social context they are living in.
The audience in Mexico is very much interested in the religious aspect of the songs. In Iran, a fan is happy to show some bootleg tapes he illegally found. In former USSR where there was no DM merchandise on sale, fans are making themselves T-shirts, badges and buttons.
The movie was screened at the London Film Festival in October 2008 but has not been released yet.

What also makes Jeremy Deller’s work so odd is the fact he doesn’t seem art market oriented: he is producing massive things, but not easily marketable. He often commits to long-term projects such as:

SPEAK TO THE EARTH AND IT WILL TELL YOU
The title recalls the pink plastic bag he designed for Frieze Art Fair 2003 Speak to the Earth and it will show you.
It was a collaboration with Skulptur Projekte Münster 2007. Jeremy Deller probably noticed the associative gardens phenomenon while staying in Münster, Germany. Those must have seemed typically German to his British eyes.
Each of the fifty four shared-garden associations were given a notebook, they were then asked to write down any social, environmental and botanical information in this diary until the next Skulptur Projekte issue in 2017. Individual stories and collective stories are the core of this project.
http://www.skulptur-projekte.de/

THE BAT HOUSE PROJECT
A contest launched in 2007 to design and provide a home for bats in London.
http://www.bathouseproject.org/

books / music :
Folk Archive: Contemporary Popular Art from the UK, Jeremy Deller & Alan Kane, Book Works, London, 2005, pp.160
After the Goldrush, Jeremy Deller, Editions CCAC, San Francisco, California, 2002, pp.96 & CD
The Uses of Literacy, Jeremy Deller, Book Works, London, 1999, pp.48
The English Civil War Part II, Personal accounts of the 1984-85 miner’s strike, Jeremy Deller, Artangel, 2002, pp.160 & CD
Life is to Blame for Everything: Collected Works & Projects, 1992-99, Jeremy Deller, Salon 3, 2001, pp.96
Acid Brass, The Williams Fairey Band, CD, Blast First / Mute Records, 1997

links:
Jeremy Deller’s website:
http://www.jeremy-deller.co.uk/
or
http://www.jeremydeller.org/

Folk Archive:
http://www.britishcouncil.org/arts-aad-folk-archive.ht

Film about Depeche Mode fans around the world:
http://www.theposterscamefromthewalls.com/

galleries:
Art Concept (Paris)
http://www.galerieartconcept.com/
Gavin Brown’s Enterprise (New York)
http://www.gavinbrown.biz/
the Modern Institute (Glasgow)
http://www.themoderninstitute.com/

Plastic bag given to the audience of Frieze Art Fair 2003, Courtesy of Art: Concept, Paris

Floria Sigismondi

Floria Sigismondi (born 1965 in Pescara, Italy) is a photographer and director.

Self Portrait with cat, 1998, Courtesy of Floria Sigismondi

Apart from her art exhibitions she is best known for directing music videos for Christina Aguilera, Muse, Interpol, The White Stripes, David Bowie, Sigur Rós, Sheryl Crow, The Cure, Björk, Amon Tobin and Marilyn Manson. Her trademark dilating, jittery camerawork, noticeable as early as her video for Manson’s The Beautiful People, has been replicated by a great number of directors since.

Marilyn Manson, 1996, Courtesy of Floria Sigismondi

Her parents were opera singers. Her family moved to Hamilton, Ontario, Canada when she was two. In her childhood she became obsessed by drawing and painting. Later, from 1987 she studied painting and illustration at the Ontario College of Art, today’s Ontario College of Art & Design (OCAD). When she took a photography course, she became obsessed once more, and graduated with a photography major.
Floria Sigismondi started a career as a fashion photographer. She came to directing music videos when she was approached by the production company The Revolver Film Co., and directed music videos for a number of Canadian bands. Her very innovative, but also very disturbing video works, located in sceneries she once described as entropic underworlds inhabited by tortured souls and omnipotent beings, attracted a number of very prominent musicians.
With her photography and sculpture installations she had solo exhibitions in Hamilton and Toronto, New York, Brescia, Italy, Göteborg, Sweden and London. Her photographs also were included in numerous group exhibitions, together with those of photographers like Cindy Sherman and Joel-Peter Witkin.

Floria Sigismondi interviewed by Uleshka & Kyoko for Ping Mag (2005)

Many of your videos use imagery from your childhood: gothic opera dresses, industrial towns, religious imagery. Would you say all your work mirrors your real life?

I express my angers and loves through my work. Things that preoccupy me and elate me. Subconsciously it creeps into the images I create.

After graduating with a photography major, you worked as a fashion photographer, then started directing music videos. How did you make the transition?

I was interested in making moving images when I realized my photos started to be part of a series of 5 or more photos at a time. I would light the subject so I was able to move the camera 360 degrees around the person and it would look good from every angle. I loved the dimension sound and movement brought. It was a whole new experience.

Throughout your photography, music videos and installations – you always manage to create a distinctive Floria Sigismondi world. How would you describe what you do, it’s more than simply directing, right?

I think of myself as a visual artist…take my camera and materials away and I would sit here and draw pictures in he sand.

And how would you describe your style, then?

Maybe dream interpreter …maybe capturing signals from other worlds.

I want to make a music video. How do I start?

I tend to listen to the music over and over again until I don’t hear it anymore or it drives me crazy. Then it is ingrained into memory and the images start to present themselves. I don’t question the initial thought…I do not judge it. I let it grow and take me somewhere and hopefully somewhere I’ve never been before. I usually go a little crazy before I get it out though.

How long does it take to make one of your music videos?

Creating one video, it takes about 1 month from prep to final edit, if there are special effects then it may take a bit longer.

In your work, it is obvious that the body concerns you a lot. What does modifying the body mean to you?

I was disconnected from my body for a long time…I lived in my head and was far from the physical. I think this was my way in dealing with it…the way I saw it…from an aliens point of view. I could take it apart and put it back together in order to try and understand it.

Your first book, Redemption became a bible for the Japanese goth girls.  What’s your opinion on them?

Great! I think the Japanese gothics dress the most creative in all the world. There is really a sense of individualism in the way it’s put together. It is a walking theater. You can imagine how into that I am. I would love one day to come to Japan.

Your imagery revolves around fear, warnings and anger. Do you consider yourself to be an optimist or a pessimist?

I am an optimist of course, but I am a realist also. It is evident that the course of the future will be very different than we enjoy it now. I depict a world gone wrong because that is part of nature…our human nature. We play god. Whether it be through war, the environment or genome manipulation, there is plenty of room for corruption and corrupted it will be.

Floria Sigismondi, Redemption, Gestalten Verlag, 1999
Floria Sigismondi, Immune, Gestalten Verlag, 2005

http://www.floriasigismondi.com/

David Bowie (book cover), 1997, Courtesy of Floria Sigismondi

Guillaume Herbaut

Photographer and reporter born in 1970.
Provides information in places where everything will not be the same anymore.
Lives and works in Paris.
Founded French agency L’Oeil Public in 1995 with other photographers.

He was trained in the use of 24×36 black and white silver photography in the way Magnum agency does but he dropped it for color pictures in 2001. As he states : Color brings some information. Then he chooses to shoot in a much more simple way, with less  move. He wants to incorporate people in a particular background to make the viewer understand instantaneously where it takes place. He is also interested in what is out-of-focus in its providing information capability.

To prepare each project, Guillaume Herbaut must find a local contact. Then he begins to investigate by gathering various documents such as press articles, books, movies, comics, music…
He also does a story-board because he tells a story : I am not a photographer who is wandering to find some images by chance (…). In my work there is little place to random things (…).
For the agency, Herbaut does mainly political and social coverages. He focuses on portraits on one side and these people’s lifestyle on the other side. Most of the time they are shown in a place which qualifies their occupation (police station, sport center, swimming pool) or at home (alone or with relatives).

5/7: Urakami, 2005, Courtesy de la Galerie Paul Frèches, Paris

Guillaume Herbaut usually designs portrait with an American shot and a frontal position. Subjects are shooted standing and looking at the camera. They are often posing.
Text means a lot to him. In the two Shkodra cycles, it is as much important as the pictures. Located in the North of Albania, Shkodra is a small town where the so-called Kanun law kills a lot of people among enemy families. Kanun is a 15th century text which defines revenge when somebody is murdered. Texts are being very important in this work. How could I tell the vendetta when all I meet are home locked-in families ? It is not easy. I had to put some texts. They are as much displayed as the photographs. They are framed, on a black background, the same size as the pictures themselves, explains Herbaut.

4/7: Slavoutich, 2002, Courtesy de la Galerie Paul Frèches, Paris

He went to places where tragedies happened to depict some dramatic situation mostly invisible today. Oswiecim is named from Auschwitz, city of Poland where the Nazis built the death camp and exterminated more than 900 000 people.
Herbaut depicts two kinds of events : the past ones which have been the headlines and the current ones which are not the most discussed.

Guillaume Herbaut devises his work 7/7 in seven parts as follows :

1/7 Livry (autobiographical)

2/7 Shkodra

3/7 Oswiecim

4/7 Slavoutich (built nearby Chernobyl to welcome homeless victims)

5/7 Urakami (suburbs of Nagasaki where the atomic bomb exploded on August 9, 1945)

6/7 Ciudad Juarez (located in Mexico across the border from El Paso, Texas. Since more than ten years by now about 400 women were tortured and killed).

http://www.oeilpublic.com/

http://www.paulfreches.com/

4/7: Slavoutich, 2002, Courtesy de la Galerie Paul Frèches, Paris

Liza Lou

Name : Liza Lou

Occupation : bead the world

Born in 1969, Liza Lou attended the San Francisco Art Institute where she was a painting student. A trip to a local bead store changed her artistic course completely. She began to experiment with beads, sequins and spangles on everyday objects. It was a different way of painting to her. This is the most amazing tone, the most amazing color, the most amazing kind of light that you can work with, says Lou. I thought, how great. Put that in your sculpture. Put that on your canvas.

At the San Francisco Art Institute, her teachers did not approve and most of them thought she was making jewelry. If you’re doing something with beads then you’re a craft person. If you’re making paintings, you’re an artist. […] there were very distinct categories, she recalls.

Liza Lou left the art school at 21 and continued to create beaded objects.

Kitchen, 1991-1994, Courtesy of Deitch Projects, NY

A 168 square feet kitchen (almost 16m2) with every pie, every muffin, every bit of cereal covered with beads. She bought household appliances and put beads directly onto their surfaces. For the cereal boxes and cherry pie, Lou first built the form out of papier-mâché. It took an estimated 30 million beads to complete her work and 5 years of intense work. From the turquoise sink to the cherry pie, Liza Lou beaded every detail by hand. It was completed in 1995 and brought her fame immediately. She was 26 at the time.

Contemporary art world thought her work was pretty subversive. Indeed Kitchen both satirizes and celebrates the notion of woman’s work : I’m referencing women’s experience in the piece, says Lou. The requirement is to have a really fastidious clean house. And, in today’s culture, to be a babe at the end of the day. You have to be cute… The task never ends.

Kitchen (sink detail), 1991-1994, Courtesy of Deitch Projects, NY

For her next project Back Yard (1997), she asked for help. Several hundred volunteers came at the Museum of Art near her home for beading parties. Although it covers 600 square feet (almost 56m2) It took only two years to complete. This work contains 250 000 blades of beaded grass and is made of more than 30 millions glass beads. It features a shiny lawn with a picnic table,  a clothesline and a barbecue grill. Beads were twisted onto wires which were then inserted into a papier-mâché surface. Papier-mâché was a key element in Back Yard in order to make the installation lighter, and easier to strike up and down for travelling. Liza Lou possibly regretted choosing a real kitchen stove for her previous project.

Each piece takes years to complete, and causes her physical agony because the task is incredibly fastidious. Her work doesn’t seem to be a parody, it rather refers to  self-will with the picture of a working ant in mind. Her beads make the surface of objects glitter and shine. Using this method, her fingers touch each and every surface inch.

At the same time, Lou worked on other projects linked with the notion of the American ideal such as a beaded Barbie (the ultimate American female icon) and a set of portraits of all the 42 American Presidents.

John F. Kennedy, American Presidents Series, 1996 to present, Courtesy of Deitch Projects, NY

The following installation also features a presidential desk, a draped American flag, a chandelier and a cigar. It resembles historic black and white photographs : Portrait Gallery (1996) using black, white and grey beads. Each portrait is bordered with a wide band of gold beads, creating the illusion of a gilded frame. It is humorous to see men in beads, Lou says in an interview. Herbert Hoover is not someone you associate with glitter.

http://www.deitch.com/

Ron Mueck

1958: Born in Melbourne, Australia

His parents were both toymakers: his father carved from wood and his mother made rag dolls.
Mueck spent much of his childhood modeling playthings. He had no formal art training and he never attended art school. He recalls: I spent my whole childhood alone in a room making stuff. […] I’m still mainly doing that….I try to put the ego into the work.
Eventually the family moved to Great Britain when he was a small boy.

His early career was as a model maker and puppeteer for children’s television, including The Muppets and Sesame Street. He also worked for the movie industry, notably Labyrinth, a fantasy film released in 1986 directed by Jim Henson (creator of The Muppet Show) and featuring David Bowie.

Mueck had his own company in London, making photo-realistic props and animatronics for the advertising industry. Although highly detailed, these props were usually designed to be photographed from one specific angle hiding the mess of construction seen from the other side.

At 37, though, Ron Mueck walked away from his lucrative career as a model maker, frustrated by the constrictions of the job: Everything I was doing was geared towards that final flat image, the piece of print. […] Everything was predetermined. I was always telling someone else’s story. I wanted to make something that a photograph wouldn’t do justice to.
He wanted to produce realistic sculptures, which looked perfect from all angles.

Boy (foot detail), 1999

Mueck’s eventual entry into the contemporary art world was almost accidental. His stepmother is artist Paula Rego. On a family holiday in America, Rego watched, mesmerized, as Mueck created a giant sand sculpture of a dragon for his two young daughters. Later, when she was working on a series of drawings for a group show in a London gallery, she asked him to create a model of Pinocchio. He did a 33-inch-tall (83cm), ultra-realist Pinocchio in silicone.

Paula Rego showed it to famous publicist Charles Saatchi who was impressed and started to collect Mueck’s work. He put Dead Dad in the Sensation show at the Royal Academy in 1997. Dead Dad is a silicone and mixed media sculpture of the naked corpse of Mueck’s father reduced to about two thirds of its natural scale. It is said to be the only work that uses Mueck’s own hair for the finished product.

Dead Dad, 1996

Then he gained mass appeal with his huge Boy, a 16 feet high (5m) sculpture which was displayed at the Millennium Dome and at the Venice Biennale in 2001. It shows a crouching boy, who seems to be scared.

Boy, 1999

Ron Mueck has a profound knowledge of anatomy, it allows him to create sculptures that faithfully reproduce human body but play with scale to produce disconcertingly images. He elaborates details to such a point that it causes powerful reactions in the visitor. When larger-than-life-size figures seem threatening, as In Bed, smaller-than-life-size creations such as Spooning Couple evoke confidence and humor.

His sculptures are made of fibreglass and silicone. In Mask II (Mueck’s face on its side) you can see teeth, gums and even a little faux saliva. Every hair, eyebrow or eyelash is fixed in a specifically hole. All the hairs are sanded and painted. The lashes are hand-tapered to a point with a scalpel. He cooks up a resin with a never-seen-the-sun Caucasian flesh color and he delicately paints every blue vein afterwards.

It looks so life-like that visitors want to touch the works. People often quote Madame Tussaud’s famous wax museum or hyper-realistic sculptures of Duane Hanson.

A Girl being installed at the Brooklyn Museum, 2007

Marcos Lopez

Born in Santa Fe, Argentina in 1958.

Currently living in Buenos Aires, Argentina where he’s working as a photographer and director of independent videos. He’s involved in painting and photojournalism as well as art and photographic direction for television commercials.

Around the end of the seventies he studied engineering for several years and began self-taught to learn photography.

In 1982 he moved to Buenos Aires, where he continued his training. The city is still a strong source of inspiration these days.

Lopez became highly involved in various group activities with other photographs and artists from other media.

In 1993 he won the Prize of the Andy Goldstein Foundation and a grant to complete his portraits in black and white. On this occasion, a book was released : Fotografias (La Azotea, 1993).

His black and white pictures are mostly portraits. People are standing at their work place or at home, they are all looking at the viewer. Style was close to the documentary with classic composition,  dark backgrounds and directional light on the character. At this time he used Rollei cameras with two lenses and long shot poses.

But then Lopez stepped over from black and white to color photography : I thought that in that way I could combat my melancholic side and take life easier.

In the mid nineties comes a cycle of photographs taken in Buenos Aires, Santa Fe and Cuba. Colors are bright, even garish and some of the characters appear as icons.

Antenna, 1996, Courtesy of Marcos Lopez

It was labelled Pop Latino because the pictures seem close to advertisings such as billboards and television images.

Pop Latino images are often considered as kitsch. It is about capturing the ordinary in daily life by taking a picture. As regards the choice of the subject, Lopez declares : It’s hard to say why someone takes on certain subjects. It’s like asking myself why I like to make pictures of the maids in the hotels I’m staying at. At the beginning I was interested in the Fatherland. Taking this series as a subjective chronicle of the end of this Menemistic century (taken from Menem, the president of Argentina from 1989 to 1999). I also wanted to emphasize the fact that I’m an artist who looks from the South and from the underdeveloped world.

Martyr, 2002, Courtesy of Marcos Lopez

In the mid nineties when asked about his method, Lopez answers: I don’t use Photoshop nor Macintosh or anything like that. I’m interested in doing real collages and touching up manually the white of the eye and to work all over the copies with paints. In my shots I use two or three assistants with banners on the back of the characters and producing smoke with machines.

http://www.marcoslopez.com/

Roast in Mendiolaza, 2001, Courtesy of Marcos Lopez