Currently taking place at Carrousel du Louvre, Paris Photo 2010 is an annual four-day extravaganza in the French capital. Now in its 14th year, the international fair for 19th century, modern and contemporary photography sees 106 exhibitors (91
Currently taking place at Carrousel du Louvre, Paris Photo 2010 is an annual four-day extravaganza in the French capital. Now in its 14th year, the international fair for 19th century, modern and contemporary photography sees 106 exhibitors (91 galleries and 15 publishers) present their work to the public. Below, two of our highlights from the event spoke to us:
Brought up in Argentina, New York-based photographer Alessandra Sanguinetti is best known for her beguiling portraits of mismatched cousins Guille and Belinda. Exploring dreams, fantasies and fears associated with the transition from childhood to adulthood, Sanguinetti beautifully captures the pair as they naively play dress-up around their home in rural Argentina. Often inspired by pictures they have seen in popular magazines and books, Guille and Belinda are captured acting out various endearing scenes that vary from drowning Ophelias to nativity scene Madonna and angel. Photographing the “psychological and physical transformations” of the cousins as they matured into adults over five years, compiled in The Adventures of Guille and Belinda and the Enigmatic Meaning of their dreams, Sanguinetti returned to document their teenage years in The Life That Came, and today frequently goes back to visit with her Hasselblad.
How did you find Guille and Belinda, and what was your experience of shooting them?
I met them while I was working on my previous series, On the Sixth Day. They lived in the area. The experience of working with them was and is joyous and inspiring.
What kind of relationship have you established with Guille and Belinda?
Our relationship grew through the years and is still in flux. It is multifaceted, and particular to the act of me observing them and being a part of their life as well.
What did you want these images to evoke?
I am not looking to evoke anything specific. I observe, I react, I play, I explore. The point is to be surprised, learn, live and discover. What the images might evoke is particular to each viewer.
What are you working on at the moment?
I am working on a long-term project on our cultural and basic relationship to food. I’m also editing a second book about Guillermina and Belinda.
Pitching reality against fantasy, Swedish photographer Simen Johan merges traditional photographic techniques with digital methods to create the most incredible and surreal imagery. For his most recent series, Until the Kingdom Comes, Johan depicts animals in scenarios where their demeanor or actions appear anthropomorphized – an exploration of the human proclivity – knowingly or otherwise – to craft alternate realities for ourselves.
What inspired and influenced this series?
Life and living.
Can you explain to us your photographic process for creating Until the Kingdom Comes?
Most of my images are constructed in the computer, from images I’ve photographed near and far, staged or on intuition. I know when an image is done when I see it, but I never know how to get there, so I do a lot of testing and experimentation, figure things out as I go along. I’m interested in how fantasies shape our experience of reality, the instability of meaning, how things are never only what they appear to be, so making the impossible feel plausible is one reason I use digital techniques.
What questions do you hope these photographs pose to the viewer?
If they raise any questions at all, that’s good enough for me. My creative process can be seen as an attempt to find forms of reconciliation between (or hold in tension) different realities and perceptions that seem impossible to reconcile or think about together. Coming to terms with reality as one that by necessity is shaped by fantasy and contradiction. I’m interested in understanding human desire and its perpetual pursuit of imaginary fulfillment – our fear of insignificance.
Text by Lucia Davies
Paris Photo 2010 runs until November 21 at Carrousel du Louvre, Paris.
