After the voyage of initiation of the East into the West by Luo Dan, avec Chinese images imprinted with the poetry of daily life, the Taïss Gallery chose to present a new photographic opus on the United States; a temporal look simultaneously at the present, into the past and oriented towards the hope of the future.
Thousands of images submerge our collective memory, carrying the traces of pictures in black and white or in living color. They symbolize our epoch. Now that America has answered to the slogan ‘Yes, we can,' what will be tomorrow's clichés? What must be shown and what must be held back?
The Must Move exhibition questions and disturbs us. Manolo Chrétien offers another look before imagining what is next. He brings us into his universe, far from the clichés of America the victorious. He immortalizes the polluted wastelands where nature tries to regain the upper hand after having been ravaged.
« Must Move ». This inscription, discovered on the Windows of an old house for sale in League City, Texas, is the connecting thread of this exhibition, symbol of the progressive creation of the United States and of its people.
From 2001 to 2008, he wandered the United States and drew upon its vastness: Texas City and its oil refineries as far as the eye can see, its highways, New York and its «aluminations», Tucson and its enormous airplane graveyards.
In his last American work, the artist has invented ‘unsolitude'; a real voyage with a virtual Partner-a cardboard cutout of the just-elected Barack Obama. Isolating this character in unusual settings, he reminds us of the atmosphere of Edward Hopper's paintings, as if the super-consumerist American lifestyle were suddenly frozen, illustrating the obsolescence of a country in pain.
Manolo Chrétien photographs, records and listens. Throughout his travels, he captures the images and sounds that surround him, drunk upon the electrifying sounds of groups like Massive Attack, Archive, Portishead, Radiohead and Tuxedomoon...
The staging on three levels of the gallery presents the mix of these different senses: sonic ambiences, video projections, and prints on brushed aluminum.
Catherine Mallet
Thousands of images submerge our collective memory, carrying the traces of pictures in black and white or in living color. They symbolize our epoch. Now that America has answered to the slogan ‘Yes, we can,' what will be tomorrow's clichés? What must be shown and what must be held back?
The Must Move exhibition questions and disturbs us. Manolo Chrétien offers another look before imagining what is next. He brings us into his universe, far from the clichés of America the victorious. He immortalizes the polluted wastelands where nature tries to regain the upper hand after having been ravaged.
« Must Move ». This inscription, discovered on the Windows of an old house for sale in League City, Texas, is the connecting thread of this exhibition, symbol of the progressive creation of the United States and of its people.
From 2001 to 2008, he wandered the United States and drew upon its vastness: Texas City and its oil refineries as far as the eye can see, its highways, New York and its «aluminations», Tucson and its enormous airplane graveyards.
In his last American work, the artist has invented ‘unsolitude'; a real voyage with a virtual Partner-a cardboard cutout of the just-elected Barack Obama. Isolating this character in unusual settings, he reminds us of the atmosphere of Edward Hopper's paintings, as if the super-consumerist American lifestyle were suddenly frozen, illustrating the obsolescence of a country in pain.
Manolo Chrétien photographs, records and listens. Throughout his travels, he captures the images and sounds that surround him, drunk upon the electrifying sounds of groups like Massive Attack, Archive, Portishead, Radiohead and Tuxedomoon...
The staging on three levels of the gallery presents the mix of these different senses: sonic ambiences, video projections, and prints on brushed aluminum.
Catherine Mallet
