I INTIME ET UNIVERSEL
INTIMATE AND UNIVERSAL

SEBASTIEN REUZÉ I

> from February 10 to March 21 2010

Consult the full version of Contretype's bulletin
n°116, here

Biography (only in French)

INTIMATE AND UNIVERSAL

Dear Jean-Louis,

The exhibition we are preparing for February 2010 will be called Intimate and Universal. It will be based on the photos I took between 2002 and 2009, which brings together a diverse range of domestic and landscape photography as well as abstract photos, still-lifes and portraits.

I have chosen this period because, since 2002, I have noticed significant changes in my approach to taking photos and in my relationships with my subjects. My compositions have become very structured and fixed, whereas before they showed movement and were, by comparison, somewhat carefree. My subjects have become more serious and I seem to have moved on from taking photos as part of series to an essentially individualistic approach, where the subject justifies itself by its fictional aspect - that is to say its capacity to influence how we read it, think about it and react to it as an intellectual transformation of the real world. My photos can also be read on another level, far from the didactic preoccupations of documentary photography, for I don’t have that vocation, even if my Friche series, taken during the summer of 2009 in Berlin – as part of an Air Antwerpen-sponsored residency – shows certain former crossing points of the dismantled Berlin Wall resembling jungles bursting with life on what used to be a no man’s land, surrounded by a city. I notice the capacity of things in the real world to be transformed, I’m interested in the possible contents of an observable reality that could be described as a ghostly presence.

For the exhibition, I have also developed a book-object, which will be one of the exhibits, under the same title as the photos arranged on the walls. This book aims to bring together various photos I took between 2002 and 2009, but it will also continue to evolve: it will not be bound, the pages will not be numbered, the loose-leaf pages can be re-ordered and even taken out and used in exhibitions. It will be offset-printed in several parts, more-or-less according to the rhythm of projects and exhibitions. The first part is a portfolio of 64 pages, and others will be added later, literally interweaving themselves. The photos will be arranged according to the similarities and differences which link them. By setting various opposing subjects against each other, they will gain a quasi-identical status. By its nature, the book will bridge the gap between a reference object and the objective of the exhibition.

It is in this spirit, and thinking of the new projects to which I am looking forward, that I am delighted, dear Jean-Louis, to be able to prepare this exhibition with you.

Sébastien

Translation: Chris Bourne

Sébastien Reuzé would like to thank the French Embassy in Brussels for its support