PRESS RELEASE
GILBERT GARCIN
courtesy Galerie Filles du Calvaire, Paris
Opening Saturday 8th September 2007
from 3.00 pm to 8.00 pm
Gilbert Garcin will attend the opening
from 9th September to 28th October 2007
Tuesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday 10.30 am – 7.30 pm
Wednesday and Thursday 10.30 am – 9.00 pm
Monday 3.30 pm – 7.30 pm
Galleria Carla Sozzani
Corso Como 10 – Milano
Tel. 02.653531 – Fax 02.29004080
E-mail: press@galleriacarlasozzani.com
Web site: http://www.galleriacarlasozzani.org
GILBERT GARCIN
Gilbert Garcin, a calm and distinct man, living in Marseille, starts to photograph once
retired and unexpectedly, becomes in a few years an internationally well-known
artist.
For many years his life passes calmly and monotonously. Born in 1929, graduates in
Economics, founds a small chandeliers import company, which he directed to 1989.
A family man, he lives and works in Marseille. Once he finds himself freer, retired,
he feels the need to elaborate the experiences he lived. He wants to express his
own point of view on life. For this purpose he chooses photography.
After nearly three years of attempts, during a workshop in Arles (where the
important photography festival Rencontres takes place) with the surrealist
photographer Arnaud Claas, Garcin has a great idea: he decides to create a
character and put him in a vast series of metaphorical situations created using
simple home-made miniatures, made by basic materials (sand, parts of old toys,
stones, threads…). The fake landscapes he makes are then used as background for
this Mr Nobody, the common man who represents the human condition.
Garcin’s photographs are entirely made with an artisan method, without any
computer correction. The bricolage hand made way (cutting, gluing, making a
shadow, making it smaller…) is an important part of the process. No colours, only
black and white, and a very rigorous technique are his trademarks. With a growing
enthusiasm Garcin creates hundreds of photo/collage, which make his “fictional
autobiography” of Mr. Nobody. With a decent look, quite old, tall and lightly bald,
with white hair and wearing an old fashioned coat, this character play paradoxes,
allegories and thoughts. The images are presented with a title that leads their
interpretation and is often the basic concept for the creation of the photograph itself.
Recently, Garcin started to photograph his wife as well. With her, the couple
becomes the subject for his investigations. Even in this case, the photographs are
characterised by a strong irony. Allegories reflect: the miscommunication, the
trouble of living and sharing experiences in a couple, the hardness of understanding
one’s dreams and the partners’ ones, the envy for breaking the ways our society
imposed to us. The impotence facing everyday problems and the need that each of
us feel to be successful, important and happy, are played in these scenes. The
theatre that the Garcin’s photographs enclose play an existential puppet in which all
of us can identify.
Solo exhibition
(from 2003 till now)
2007
Gallery Kowasa, Barcellona, Spain
Gallery Hartmann, Barcellona, Spain
Ardenandanstruther Gallery, Pellworth, UK
Infocus Gallery Burkhart, Cologna, Germany
Abbaye de Corbigny, France
Galerie Hoopers, Londra, UK
2006
Gallery TRINTA, Santiago de Compostela, Spain
Théâtre Royal de Namur, Belgium
Festival Explorafoto, Salamanca, Spain
Centro d’arte Tecla Sala, Barcellona, Spain
Month of Photography, Moscow, Russia
Image/Itmage, Orthez, France
Mai de la Photographie de Quimper, France
Mois de l'Image, Dieppe, France
CDNA, Grenoble, France
FNAC Strasburg, France
FNAC Marseille, France
Fotoencuentros, Murcia, Spain
Gallery Holden Luntz, Palm Beach, Florida, USA
2005
FNAC Lione, France
Athen’s Month of Photography (Gallery Ileana Tounta), Greece
Mois de la Photographie de Cholet, France
Hoopers Gallery, Londra, UK
Bibliothèque de Chalons en Champagne, France
Théâtre de Marvejols, France
2004
FNAC Cannes, France
Galerie La Passerelle, Gap, France
FNAC Velizy, France
FNAC Lille, France
FNAC Bordeaux, France
Galerie KOWSA, Barcellona, Spain
Galerie Focale, Nyon, Switzerland
2003
Poznan’s Biennial of Photography, Poland
Festival de la Photographie de Toronto, Canada
VIIme Biennale Internationale di Ténérife, Canaries Islands
FNAC Bourges, Toulon, Clermont-Ferrand, France
Museo della Fotografia, Braga, Portugal
Galerie Les Filles du Calvaire, Bruxelles, Belgium
Bibliography
2007
2005
A paraître : Oeuvres complètes, Editions Filigranes, Paris, France
Le témoin, preface by Armelle Canitrot, Editions Filigranes, Paris,
France
2002 Simulacres, introduction by Anne-Marie Garat, Editions Filigranes,
Paris, France
1999 L’homme qui est une image, preface by Yves Gerbal, Editions
Autres Temps/Fondation Regard de Provence, France
La vie est un théâtre, Editions Filigranes, Paris, France
Portfolio Simulacres, Phocal, Marseille, France
Catalogues
2003 Catalogue MEP La fabrication du réel, art et artifice dans la
photographie contemporaine 1980 – 2000, catalogo Festival de Toronto, Canada
2002 Catalogue MEP – collection NSM Plaquette La Vie est un Thèâtre
(Ville de Bobigny), France
2001 Catalogue of Noorderlicht Photography festival, Holand
Catalogue of Bratislava Photography’s Fair , Slovacchia
1999 Catalogue of Aubenades, Aubenas, France
Catalogue of Curitiba Biennale, Brasile
Catalogue Photosynkéria, Tessalonicco, Greece
1998 Catalogue Encontros da Imagem 98, Braga, Portugal