Thomas Bernardet
18 Nov 2012 - 19 Jan 2013
TOMAS BERNARDET
18 November 2012 - 19 January 2013
MOTINTERNATIONAL Brussels is pleased to announce a solo exhibition by Thomas Bernardet.
Thomas Bernardet in conversation with Constance Barrère Dangleterre
C : Does the selection of images you use in your works come from your own photographs?
T : Yes, they have a « found » aspect, but they are always photos I’ve taken myself.
C : What do you mean by « found » ?
T : I’m talking about a sort of obviousness. My photos tend to focus on things that belong to everyone.
C : I’m wondering about the status of your work ‘Pas d’entrée vidéo’. (No video input). Is it a unique work or an edition?
T : This piece is unique. I took the phrase from one of my notebooks and had it made into an adhesive cut-out that I fixed onto a waste sheet that had been used to clean a press before
printing a lithograph. I make these pieces like drawings or paintings, but using a commercial advertising technique. The process of digitizing a handwritten text, mechanically reproducing it and then applying it manually to paper comes from a desire to introduce a gestural aspect into the technical reproducibility of the work of art.
C : Is the photo in the collage ‘Reklaw Snave’ well and truly positioned upside down?
T : Yes. The lettering is also reversed. It is simply the name ‘Walker Evans’ spelled backwards. Evans is an artist who has influenced me a lot. This piece was an important milestone for me : turning one of the inventors of modern photography upside down, reversing the image itself to see if it could become abstract while remaining figurative and documentary. I like the story in which Kandinsky describes how one of his paintings got turned upside down in his studio and became a key element in his progress towards abstraction.
C : The photographic format in your art sustains countless manipulations : inversions, superimpositions, vanishings... How does this process start?
T : I take quite a lot of photographs. I usually archive them in files that I call 'Documents de travail' (Work documents), it’s a sort of re-interpretation of Eugene Atget’s 'Documents pour artistes' (Documents for artist). They later re-emerge – sometimes after several years – once I have become sufficiently detached from the reasons and the context in which I took the picture. Then I make test prints which I manipulate and live with for a while. When I am
sufficiently detached from them, I start making associations between images, “damaging” them as if they didn’t belong to me. This is where the series of 'Documents Travaillés' (Worked Documents) arises from.
Thomas Bernardet (born 1975 in Fréjus, France) lives and works in Brussels.
Selected recent exhibitions include: Le Living Room, Montpellier, France (2012); Galerie Pannetier, Nîmes, France (2012); Les doubres, MAMAC, Liège, Belgium (2012); Salon de Montrouge, Paris, France (2012); Tohoku University of Art, Yamagata, Japan (2011); Belgique Trois Quart Temps, Napolidanza, Museum PAN, Naples, Italia (2011); La part des choses, In Extenso et Mains d'oeuvres, Paris, France (2010); Ecce Homo Ludens, Musée Régional d'art contemporain, Sérignan, France (2010).
18 November 2012 - 19 January 2013
MOTINTERNATIONAL Brussels is pleased to announce a solo exhibition by Thomas Bernardet.
Thomas Bernardet in conversation with Constance Barrère Dangleterre
C : Does the selection of images you use in your works come from your own photographs?
T : Yes, they have a « found » aspect, but they are always photos I’ve taken myself.
C : What do you mean by « found » ?
T : I’m talking about a sort of obviousness. My photos tend to focus on things that belong to everyone.
C : I’m wondering about the status of your work ‘Pas d’entrée vidéo’. (No video input). Is it a unique work or an edition?
T : This piece is unique. I took the phrase from one of my notebooks and had it made into an adhesive cut-out that I fixed onto a waste sheet that had been used to clean a press before
printing a lithograph. I make these pieces like drawings or paintings, but using a commercial advertising technique. The process of digitizing a handwritten text, mechanically reproducing it and then applying it manually to paper comes from a desire to introduce a gestural aspect into the technical reproducibility of the work of art.
C : Is the photo in the collage ‘Reklaw Snave’ well and truly positioned upside down?
T : Yes. The lettering is also reversed. It is simply the name ‘Walker Evans’ spelled backwards. Evans is an artist who has influenced me a lot. This piece was an important milestone for me : turning one of the inventors of modern photography upside down, reversing the image itself to see if it could become abstract while remaining figurative and documentary. I like the story in which Kandinsky describes how one of his paintings got turned upside down in his studio and became a key element in his progress towards abstraction.
C : The photographic format in your art sustains countless manipulations : inversions, superimpositions, vanishings... How does this process start?
T : I take quite a lot of photographs. I usually archive them in files that I call 'Documents de travail' (Work documents), it’s a sort of re-interpretation of Eugene Atget’s 'Documents pour artistes' (Documents for artist). They later re-emerge – sometimes after several years – once I have become sufficiently detached from the reasons and the context in which I took the picture. Then I make test prints which I manipulate and live with for a while. When I am
sufficiently detached from them, I start making associations between images, “damaging” them as if they didn’t belong to me. This is where the series of 'Documents Travaillés' (Worked Documents) arises from.
Thomas Bernardet (born 1975 in Fréjus, France) lives and works in Brussels.
Selected recent exhibitions include: Le Living Room, Montpellier, France (2012); Galerie Pannetier, Nîmes, France (2012); Les doubres, MAMAC, Liège, Belgium (2012); Salon de Montrouge, Paris, France (2012); Tohoku University of Art, Yamagata, Japan (2011); Belgique Trois Quart Temps, Napolidanza, Museum PAN, Naples, Italia (2011); La part des choses, In Extenso et Mains d'oeuvres, Paris, France (2010); Ecce Homo Ludens, Musée Régional d'art contemporain, Sérignan, France (2010).