except the clouds
PhotosAthens is an oxymoron city. Its flamboyant mythological heritage coexists with its dark and dramatic political and economic situation. Its sun shines with a thousand lights but crushes its streets. It is a blinding light that reveals its violence and its twilight faces. And yet we feel a much more intense life force than elsewhere. The idea of resistance takes on its full meaning. Bodies tirelessly rise up to be one in the face of the chaos of history. In permanent revolution.
My project is to account for this oxymoron in images, but also for the complexity of the contemporary in its different temporal strata - the past, present and future at the same time, as a set of remains that are constantly being transformed. What's left when everything falls apart?
Digital manipulations, reappropriation of archives and geometric composition combine to form a single, hybrid image, the sum of all these different temporalities and draw a fresco of the present time. As in the streets of the city where the ancient and the contemporary mix and mingle. Present the immensity of a moment_ extended and spread out in very distinct dimensions, time, space.
With this sentence of Walter Benjamin always in mind, as an invisible and obsessive thread, seek light in the ruins of Attica. "In a landscape where nothing was recognizable except the clouds, and in the middle, in a field of forces traversed by tensions and destructive explosions, the tiny and fragile human body. »
"This text by Benjamin, who gave the title to Bérangère Fromont's book, Except the Clouds, speaks of the impossibility for a generation to find in the experience of war a moral or political reference point to face a world in ruins. What in principle appears as a book of photographs, becomes by the very title a profound reflection on the experience of history and the way in which young Athenians in revolt, seize history and face societies that can no longer think about the future by learning from their past. "Laura Carbonel-Punto from Fuga Bogota
I recently saw a documentary about John Berger. It was shot only a couple of years before his death. In it he says at some point :“The moment can be absolutely vast”.
I have this feeling when I’m looking at your book. It’s as if it presents to me the vastness of a moment_ expanded and spread over instances, time, space. Nikolas Ventourakis
The book is a complete success in carrying the message and the position of the author in contemplative ways. Printed on heavily textured rag, the images within the small book are incredibly well-edited and assembled. The paper selection is particularly of considerably thought out consequence. Small flecks of fibrous texture runs throughout creating relief patterns under the printed image. The elasticity of the image becomes tactile and small pin pricks of what come through the dark images at times, presenting a cacophony of stars or clever references to the fallability of images and of time-weathered illustrations of life under the lens are a bonus. It is one of my personal choices for the year and has my highest recommendation for both Artist and publisher nailing it perfectly on the first try.
Brad Feuerhelm Americansuburbx.com
My project is to account for this oxymoron in images, but also for the complexity of the contemporary in its different temporal strata - the past, present and future at the same time, as a set of remains that are constantly being transformed. What's left when everything falls apart?
Digital manipulations, reappropriation of archives and geometric composition combine to form a single, hybrid image, the sum of all these different temporalities and draw a fresco of the present time. As in the streets of the city where the ancient and the contemporary mix and mingle. Present the immensity of a moment_ extended and spread out in very distinct dimensions, time, space.
With this sentence of Walter Benjamin always in mind, as an invisible and obsessive thread, seek light in the ruins of Attica. "In a landscape where nothing was recognizable except the clouds, and in the middle, in a field of forces traversed by tensions and destructive explosions, the tiny and fragile human body. »
"This text by Benjamin, who gave the title to Bérangère Fromont's book, Except the Clouds, speaks of the impossibility for a generation to find in the experience of war a moral or political reference point to face a world in ruins. What in principle appears as a book of photographs, becomes by the very title a profound reflection on the experience of history and the way in which young Athenians in revolt, seize history and face societies that can no longer think about the future by learning from their past. "Laura Carbonel-Punto from Fuga Bogota
I recently saw a documentary about John Berger. It was shot only a couple of years before his death. In it he says at some point :“The moment can be absolutely vast”.
I have this feeling when I’m looking at your book. It’s as if it presents to me the vastness of a moment_ expanded and spread over instances, time, space. Nikolas Ventourakis
The book is a complete success in carrying the message and the position of the author in contemplative ways. Printed on heavily textured rag, the images within the small book are incredibly well-edited and assembled. The paper selection is particularly of considerably thought out consequence. Small flecks of fibrous texture runs throughout creating relief patterns under the printed image. The elasticity of the image becomes tactile and small pin pricks of what come through the dark images at times, presenting a cacophony of stars or clever references to the fallability of images and of time-weathered illustrations of life under the lens are a bonus. It is one of my personal choices for the year and has my highest recommendation for both Artist and publisher nailing it perfectly on the first try.
Brad Feuerhelm Americansuburbx.com