 MARCH 2006 : FREDERIC DELANGLE |
La photo Unique The Hôtels Paris Rive Gauche group asked me to choose ONE day to visit the hotels. I chose ONE – the Hôtel Des Grands Hommes. I visited the hotel and chose ONE room: n° 60. I then arranged the ONE day when I would come and spend ONE night there. It was the 3rd March. I had to take photos. On the nioght of the 3rd we went – Sabrina and I – to the hotel. The person at reception gave me the key to room sixty-ONE. I told him that there was a mistake, as I had reserved room 60, but he replied that on his planning sheet it was definitely sixty-ONE. We went out to eat at a restaurant and came back to the room. I intended to take ONE photo of Sabrina and me sleeping in the bed, with ONE exposure to last all of ONE night. I had tried previously of course, and the technique had failed. I wanted to try again by taking just ONE photo of the only night that I would spend in the room of this hotel, on the 3rd March, with the only woman I love. I had no choice. Well, I have to admit that I didn't dare; I took quite a few shots to get relaxed, calm, to avoid the stress of my youth when I used to go to the developing lab with a knot in my stomach thinking "if I've messed it up this time, I'm going to stop taking photos". I went to the lab to pick up my negatives, and the photo of the whole night had worked. So I destroyed the others: they were worthless and didn't fit the criteria for this unique commission which will stay with me as a unique experience, and which I hope will one day be used in a unique exhibition to the great satisfaction of an equally unique person, to whom I give my gratitude for this original initiative, or rather, this UNIQUE initiative. Thank you Alain.
|
 AHMEDABAD 1 |
 AHMEDABAD 2 |
 AHMEDABAD 3 |
 AHMEDABAD 4 |
 AHMEDABAD 5 |
 AHMEDABAD 6 |
 AHMEDABAD 7 |
 AHMEDABAD 8 |
 AHMEDABAD 9 |
 AHMEDABAD 10 |
|
FREDERIC DELANGLE 108 bd Edmond Rostand Biography Frédéric Delangle was born in 1965 and lives near Paris. After training at the photography department of the university Paris VIII between 1989 and 1994, he started to work as a photographer for the student newspaper, and since then as an independent photographer, specialising in architecture and landscape work. He joined the Archipress agency in 2001 and in 2003 started to work on ad campaigns for various agencies (Devarieux Villaret, Young et Rubicam). Since university he has also continued to pursue his own personal photographic research into landscapes, including his series "Ahmedabad, No Life Last Night", "Périphérie Périphérique", "Plages" and ongoing work on the urban landscape, which he completes during his various voyages. All this work is done with a 4x5 inch camera. He is currently sponsored by the Philippe Chaume gallery (Paris, 10th arrondissement). Exhibitions: Espace Confluences, Paris 1990/ Mai de la Photographie, Reims 1992/ Projects:a book of "Ahmedabad, No Life Last Night (Gille Fages, October 2006), an exhibition at the Younf & Rubican agency (March 2006), an exhibition in Charolles (April 2006), and exhibition in Lilli (October 2006), and exhibition at the Philippe Chaume Gallery (end 2006).
Ahmedabad : No life last night. Ahmedabad is the capital of Gujarat, a state that is under the control of Hindus Radicals, in north-west of India. Its extreme poverty now matches its past grandeur. The town of Ahmedabad crystallizes the global issues that earth will have to cope with within the 21st century: overpopulation, impoverishment, pollution, insalubrities, terrible women position, the removal of the sacred aura surrounding references and finally their disappearance. Are we allowed to point out a humanitarian catastrophe through poor people in decay and should we? Once the emotion of the confrontation with people on the street is away, my choice is not to take pictures of the human form of this misery. In the daytime, I videotape the saturation of streets, the great flood of people moving and the frenzy unconcerned about its setting. Everything goes too fast and the mosaic appears to me very elaborate on the peddlers’ stalls, on posters and cloth. Ahmedabad ‘s ornaments immerse me in a town that is really hard to get. At night, I can see another setting: the town naked. No more hardware; taxi drivers sleeping, women resting after having fixed decent meals. The curtain rises on a troubling set. I have met my subject after nights of wandering on desert streets. Like a negative showing a very different point of view of this town. The purpose of my work is to understand the town in its pure intimacy. There I find scars of pain. The complete series of pictures gives eventually a sense to my work. I would like to be a witness who denounces the slow dissolution of Ahmedabad and of its inhabitants within total indifference. Where lays humanity on these desert streets? What unsettled ghosts wander on the front of my lens and then disappear… On the verge of ruin, will Ahmedabad find the resources to draw back?
|
Service Marketing et Commercial : Alain Bisotti
- tel : +33 1 56 81 00 33 |