A new trial with Galerie no1 to try to be noticed.

To prepare 2016 and decide how I will proceed I needed  to feature the situation correctly. During my travel to Portugal in January I had the opportunity to show my works to the only « big » photo gallery of the country. During the appointment it appeared  clearly  that I lost a lot of credibility for the owner of the shop when I explained why I had no limited and numbered collection of photos. So it was completely necessary to have a stock of photos devoted to this market. Furthermore, the direct sales becoming scarce and requiring more investments I needed to have a pricing  for a group of photos that could allow to pay the commission and fees of a partner.

When I entered the AAB association one objective was to be able to find new distribution networks. After one year, it became clear that this structure was not adapted to generate sales.

So, I contacted again Galerie no. 1 in Paris and joined two small exhibitions in order to extend my connections.

 The pearl of the Tage (River of Lisbon- View of the Bridge 25th April)

My first participation was for a collective booth in the exhibition called « 4arts » that took place in the Marais in the center of Paris. As it took place mid February, Galerie No. 1 decided to collect works around a big subject that is « LOVE ». I presented two photos in 30x40cm: Planet Love 2 (see previous post of November 2015) and a new photo resulting from my Portuguese trip.

Last year the informations I had from this show where good.  That explains why I wanted to be present to have the feeling of the show. The results where globally bad, only few exhibitors managed to sell. Located in the Marais I expected to see a higher quality in the visitors, but it did not happen.  Last year the « Journées du Patrimoine » took place on the same day and this event attracted a better public. Nevertheless it appeared clearly that if I wanted to be noticed I needed to have bigger photos to catch directly the visitor's eyes. So it will be more profitable to exhibit a bigger size than two small.

 

The other small show I joined was called « Collage » (Pasting). I decided to present the panel realized for the COP 21 exhibition of the AAB (see the post in December 2015). The gallery partners found that the purpose of the work was interesting and that it could be worth to try to launch a petition with « change.org » web site.  We did it! If you consider that there is an urgency to promote « green  photography »  you can join my petition, which presently written in French.

Today the 9th May the industrials have no need to be afraid, I have only 13 signatures.


 

Happy new year 2016.

Here is my wishing photo-card for 2016.

Explanation for those who might need one. 

Traditionally January is a month for adopting resolutions that in 84% of the cases are not followed by real results.  We are the 4th of January  and not even a month before the COP21 Conference managed an historical agreement.

Anyone who thought about these issues is convinced : we will have to adapt our behaviours and  change our way of living. The photo picture the inside of the Parisian store Galeries Lafayette on the 26th of December. The posters are my designs and recall the objectives of COP 21, the one in the right is less readable and is a pray to think green. The lights express the power of business and past traditions. Today we live a period in which form and emotion (lights and decoration) takes the control of the essence.

Confirmation of a new style in my photo.

As I explained in the previous posts my work around COP 21 thematic has conducted me to find a new way of presenting my work. The posters I designed were planned to be exhibited in a real project which did not become a reality. So to avoid frustration I made them real in a virtual photographic reality. I produce about 20 photos including my COP 21 posters and will present here below several for you to figure out the result.

 

The choice of a black&white background with a standard size including my creations in colour will be the basis of this new trend. All images displayed and mixed are all my images. As I love black&white photos and my "panoroïds", I will mix them in the future. It is the way I found to really install my work in the Street Art Photography Movement. My creations will through this method be presented in urban contexts and environments.

A triptych for COP 21.

In the previous posts I presented two works. But I wanted to exhibit something that would be more powerful. Inspired by the initial posters which were English or American, I wanted to have a French reference. One of the most famous French poster, which was also reproduced in stamps, was the appeal of General de Gaulle. So, I produced one with a similar structure, but related to photography and the photographers.

 Poster for the panel The Appeal.

Then, like in "Street Art Photo No. 1", I had to build the image. In Mea Culpa, there is already the idea of religion and guilty humanity which did not respect the Goddess Earth. I decided to evoke a Christian cross composed with the COP 21 posters. The final result was the photo called Appeal.

Because, there is text integrated in the image it had to be presented in a large frame in order to be read. Today it is easy to have large print for a photo, you just need to pay. But with recycled paper that is no more the case for a single sample. Once you find a company that uses these papers, you must adapt to the available sizes: A4 or A3. I decided to present the photo in a panel of 60X90 cm, with an image sized 57x87 cm. I divided the photo in seven pieces, I mean seven files in .pdf format, and imagine that it would be simple to glue them together after. Practically the printing and gluing were more complicated, and the result I present for the exhibition is far from being perfect. This just confirms how critical the situation is and shows clearly the compromises we have to accept as long as the industry or the technology does not provide an acceptable alternative. 

 

 

 

Photo called : The Appeal.©2015

 

Today there is an urgency around environmental questions therefore I have chosen to produce images in the spirit of war propaganda.  I use a religious iconography because I feel that all the elements are present to transform ecology into the world religion of the XXIth century and this can be dangerous. We are responsible for our actions and have to adopt corresponding behaviours. 

 

 

 Display of the photos (Mea Culpa, The Appeal, Genesis) in the exhibition from the AAB.

My influence is reduced as a simple citizen and artist, but at least I do something at my level. If, we add all similar initiatives we might finally succeed in improving the things.

« Janus et Rébus sont sur la banquise» a creative turning point.

As I already said since September I am in a creative period. My colleagues from the A.A.B. who organized an exhibition about the COP 21 objectives were lacking material to show. I decided to think about what I could do to support their initiative. I began by conceiving a photo with the material of « La Géode en Folie» and produced an enigmatic composition that illustrated the title « Janus and Rébus are on the bank-ice ». Very pleased with my inventive composition I sent it by email expecting an enthusiastic response. « I don't understand. » was the answer. So, I was obliged to provide an explanation. I found that very comical and instructive. I changed slightly the composition, add an explanation and decided to present the result, called Mea Culpa, in the exhibition.

But I needed to present something. The idea to use the collection of the COP 21 posters (see my previous post) came up. As I had no intention to glue my posters in the streets of Paris like street artists do with their work (they do that at night away from the police), I imagine to use Photoshop to include the posters in photos from Parisian streets. The A.A.B. being at the origin of this idea, the first photo presented is the outside wall of the association with some of my posters.

On the other hand, the objective of this exhibition linked with the COP 21 conference was to start thinking ecological in our artistic fields. Therefore, the participants had to provide a detailed label describing the material used in the exhibited works. So, I tried to find an ecological way to present my numerical images. My surprise was complete to state that after several hours on the web searching for a green printing solution, there was in fact no simple solution available at my level in Paris in 2015. There are only few companies offering « Green » printing solutions, and generally available only for companies or industrial quantities, which was not the case for me. For photographers you can choose the more expensive papers made out with plant fibres like cotton or bamboo for instance. Then, you can eventually choose a printing company that will respect a green chart for the treatment of their wastes but there was no photographic laboratory claiming a really green attachment in the list. Of course I looked to the inks and other chemical products used in photography, the results were similar. The conclusion was clear: There is today no possibility to be a 100% green photographer at my scale. One can choose subjects related with this field, but finally the printing of the images or their distribution will demand energy and non-ecological products that will affect environment. So symbolically I decided to present my images with laser prints using recycled paper and not photographic paper. I will show two images sized 30x40cm and a panel of 60x90 cm composed with glued images because there is no other printing possibilities. Of course the quality of the image is deteriorated, but it is the only way I found to be green. So for the future if we want to preserve climate we will have to make compromises with our standards of living and our criteria of

judgement on photography. As long as technology and the industry will not provide a new solution, we will have to change our behaviours. Presently, almost no photographer is ready to follow this way, we are trapped.

COP 21 : A challenge for everyone and an aborted project.

With the event of COP 21 and its problematic, the French government supported all the initiatives that would contribute to become conscious of the situation. In this context the A.A.B. (Ateliers des Artistes de Belleville) and its members wanted to produce an exhibition that would reflect the artists commitment to the climate problematic. So the commission of the association I belong planned an exhibition entitled « Janus and Rebus are on the ice-bank… ». The title was not very clear and it was difficult to obtain contributions. So I decided, to participate and began to think about what to do to be exhibited.

Finally, I found several ideas and as I had the experience of the photo exhibition I tried to build the following project. With Photoshop and all the photos produced in September on La Géode I have designed about fifteen posters to promote the COP 21 event.   

These posters needed to be seen by the public, so I contacted the merchant association of the St. Paul Village and offered a collaboration for the duration of the conference from the 30th of November to the 12th of December. I would provide the posters to be displayed in the shop-windows and would have made a web advertising campaign. The merchants would present the posters in their shops and would support this experience their own way. Their main contribution being in financing the printing of the posters with recycle paper (the price is three times the price of a normal print). The budget was of 300 € for 12-15 shops, and the merchants would keep the poster at the end of the experience. I contacted the association on the 20th of October, I expected that they would have been able to react quickly and that they would be pleased to participate in an event that would follow the actuality. 

The reaction was very away from what I had expected. First, this temporary exhibition of posters was considered much too political, secondly the budget was too high and thirdly they were not able to decide quickly on the subject. I offered a modified and extended version of the project for a budget of 200 € after having printed a sample. The result of the printing was medium but that is one of the problems if we want to be ecological.

I never received any reply. The events that happened since in Paris as put an end to the project, but it shows how difficult the situation is for an artist to be exhibited in Paris.

Finally, I have produced my photos and posters and will only participate in the exhibition of the A.A.B.