Taufenbach & Pourtout

“March 2020. The Eternal City; Rome is deserted, confined. Only four artists roam the Villa Médici in a foremost deep artistic confinement. Among them, the photography artists Edouard Taufenbach and Bastien Pourtout observe in this unprecedented episode of suspended time: the gradual arrival of the swallows. Intrigued by these birds —which do not exist in the wild but only in human coexistence— they decide to capture their flight, a movement of freedom both in this unprecedented period and forever. Above the fence, the moments stolen from these great migrants follow one another, sometimes cropped, blurred or detailed in what looks like a monochromatic sky, but the intense lavender blue turns to taupe, gold or fiery orange. The colors of the sky come as a call to better observe the granularity of our world. This body of work was awarded the prestigious “À quatre mains Swiss Life” award (SwissLife Banque Privée), which rewarded the photographic duo and the musician Régis Campo, who composed two pieces for the series. The intermittent sequencing of the circular flight of the swallows with swirling movements of a repetitive music, circulates and embraces the works…” Sara Huhounenq, Beaux Arts Magazine, Paris. Le Bleu du Ciel by Taufenbach has been exhibited in Roubaix, Arles, Bordeaux and recently at La Galerie Nationale Jeu de Paume in Paris, as part of the oeuvre recently included in the prestigious Thomas Walter MoMA NYC collection.

“March 2020. The Eternal City; Rome is deserted, confined. Only four artists roam the Villa Médici in a foremost deep artistic confinement. Among them, the photography artists Edouard Taufenbach and Bastien Pourtout observe in this unprecedented episode of suspended time: the gradual arrival of the swallows. Intrigued by these birds —which do not exist in the wild but only in human coexistence— they decide to capture their flight, a movement of freedom both in this unprecedented period and forever. Above the fence, the moments stolen from these great migrants follow one another, sometimes cropped, blurred or detailed in what looks like a monochromatic sky, but the intense lavender blue turns to taupe, gold or fiery orange. The colors of the sky come as a call to better observe the granularity of our world. This body of work was awarded the prestigious “À quatre mains Swiss Life” award (SwissLife Banque Privée), which rewarded the photographic duo and the musician Régis Campo, who composed two pieces for the series. The intermittent sequencing of the circular flight of the swallows with swirling movements of a repetitive music, circulates and embraces the works…” Sara Huhounenq, Beaux Arts Magazine, Paris. Le Bleu du Ciel by Taufenbach has been exhibited in Roubaix, Arles, Bordeaux and recently at La Galerie Nationale Jeu de Paume in Paris, as part of the oeuvre recently included in the prestigious Thomas Walter MoMA NYC collection.

“After years of research, Edouatd Taufenbach was able to work with an exceptional collection of anonymous images that director Sébastien Lifshitz has been gathering over several decades… By selecting with obsessive care, coherent corpuses of rare snapshots of leisure, pleasure and desire; he multiplied these silver on gelatin plates to be then fragmented and manually rearranged, sometimes using different scales, in a composition stemming from a rule of mathematical nature [that refers both to digital and the beginning of the cinema]. The latter is specific to each one of the original images which, in a way, impose it. It points to, highlights and amplifies a formal or narrative aspect. The curves of a body here, a gesture there… Conversely it also allows the complete reinterpretation of the image, the invention of a new one: Who would suspect that this bouquet of feminine silhouettes comes from a horizontal image featuring a rather sensible farandole of bathers? In any case Édouard Taufenbach has worked with an open jubilation. —I inject cinema, time and rhythm to my images. The viewer is the one who operates the fi lm strip— he says”. Étienne Hatt, Curator

“After years of research, Edouatd Taufenbach was able to work with an exceptional collection of anonymous images that director Sébastien Lifshitz has been gathering over several decades… By selecting with obsessive care, coherent corpuses of rare snapshots of leisure, pleasure and desire; he multiplied these silver on gelatin plates to be then fragmented and manually rearranged, sometimes using different scales, in a composition stemming from a rule of mathematical nature [that refers both to digital and the beginning of the cinema]. The latter is specific to each one of the original images which, in a way, impose it. It points to, highlights and amplifies a formal or narrative aspect. The curves of a body here, a gesture there… Conversely it also allows the complete reinterpretation of the image, the invention of a new one: Who would suspect that this bouquet of feminine silhouettes comes from a horizontal image featuring a rather sensible farandole of bathers? In any case Édouard Taufenbach has worked with an open jubilation. —I inject cinema, time and rhythm to my images. The viewer is the one who operates the fi lm strip— he says”. Étienne Hatt, Curator

Spéculaire “After years of research, Edouatd Taufenbach was able to work with an exceptional collection of anonymous images that director Sébastien Lifshitz has been gathering over several decades… By selecting with obsessive care, coherent corpuses of rare snapshots of leisure, pleasure and desire; he multiplied these silver on gelatin plates to be then fragmented and manually rearranged, sometimes using different scales, in a composition stemming from a rule of mathematical nature [that refers both to digital and the beginning of the cinema]. The latter is specific to each one of the original images which, in a way, impose it. It points to, highlights and amplifies a formal or narrative aspect. The curves of a body here, a gesture there… Conversely it also allows the complete reinterpretation of the image, the invention of a new one: Who would suspect that this bouquet of feminine silhouettes comes from a horizontal image featuring a rather sensible farandole of bathers? In any case Édouard Taufenbach has worked with an open jubilation. —I inject cinema, time and rhythm to my images. The viewer is the one who operates the fi lm strip— he says”. Étienne Hatt, Curator

Spéculaire “After years of research, Edouatd Taufenbach was able to work with an exceptional collection of anonymous images that director Sébastien Lifshitz has been gathering over several decades… By selecting with obsessive care, coherent corpuses of rare snapshots of leisure, pleasure and desire; he multiplied these silver on gelatin plates to be then fragmented and manually rearranged, sometimes using different scales, in a composition stemming from a rule of mathematical nature [that refers both to digital and the beginning of the cinema]. The latter is specific to each one of the original images which, in a way, impose it. It points to, highlights and amplifies a formal or narrative aspect. The curves of a body here, a gesture there… Conversely it also allows the complete reinterpretation of the image, the invention of a new one: Who would suspect that this bouquet of feminine silhouettes comes from a horizontal image featuring a rather sensible farandole of bathers? In any case Édouard Taufenbach has worked with an open jubilation. —I inject cinema, time and rhythm to my images. The viewer is the one who operates the fi lm strip— he says”. Étienne Hatt, Curator

“After years of research, Edouatd Taufenbach was able to work with an exceptional collection of anonymous images that director Sébastien Lifshitz has been gathering over several decades… By selecting with obsessive care, coherent corpuses of rare snapshots of leisure, pleasure and desire; he multiplied these silver on gelatin plates to be then fragmented and manually rearranged, sometimes using different scales, in a composition stemming from a rule of mathematical nature [that refers both to digital and the beginning of the cinema]. The latter is specific to each one of the original images which, in a way, impose it. It points to, highlights and amplifies a formal or narrative aspect. The curves of a body here, a gesture there… Conversely it also allows the complete reinterpretation of the image, the invention of a new one: Who would suspect that this bouquet of feminine silhouettes comes from a horizontal image featuring a rather sensible farandole of bathers? In any case Édouard Taufenbach has worked with an open jubilation. —I inject cinema, time and rhythm to my images. The viewer is the one who operates the fi lm strip— he says”. Étienne Hatt, Curator

“After years of research, Edouatd Taufenbach was able to work with an exceptional collection of anonymous images that director Sébastien Lifshitz has been gathering over several decades… By selecting with obsessive care, coherent corpuses of rare snapshots of leisure, pleasure and desire; he multiplied these silver on gelatin plates to be then fragmented and manually rearranged, sometimes using different scales, in a composition stemming from a rule of mathematical nature [that refers both to digital and the beginning of the cinema]. The latter is specific to each one of the original images which, in a way, impose it. It points to, highlights and amplifies a formal or narrative aspect. The curves of a body here, a gesture there… Conversely it also allows the complete reinterpretation of the image, the invention of a new one: Who would suspect that this bouquet of feminine silhouettes comes from a horizontal image featuring a rather sensible farandole of bathers? In any case Édouard Taufenbach has worked with an open jubilation. —I inject cinema, time and rhythm to my images. The viewer is the one who operates the fi lm strip— he says”. Étienne Hatt, Curator

“After years of research, Edouatd Taufenbach was able to work with an exceptional collection of anonymous images that director Sébastien Lifshitz has been gathering over several decades… By selecting with obsessive care, coherent corpuses of rare snapshots of leisure, pleasure and desire; he multiplied these silver on gelatin plates to be then fragmented and manually rearranged, sometimes using different scales, in a composition stemming from a rule of mathematical nature [that refers both to digital and the beginning of the cinema]. The latter is specific to each one of the original images which, in a way, impose it. It points to, highlights and amplifies a formal or narrative aspect. The curves of a body here, a gesture there… Conversely it also allows the complete reinterpretation of the image, the invention of a new one: Who would suspect that this bouquet of feminine silhouettes comes from a horizontal image featuring a rather sensible farandole of bathers? In any case Édouard Taufenbach has worked with an open jubilation. —I inject cinema, time and rhythm to my images. The viewer is the one who operates the fi lm strip— he says”. Étienne Hatt, Curator

Spéculaire “After years of research, Edouatd Taufenbach was able to work with an exceptional collection of anonymous images that director Sébastien Lifshitz has been gathering over several decades… By selecting with obsessive care, coherent corpuses of rare snapshots of leisure, pleasure and desire; he multiplied these silver on gelatin plates to be then fragmented and manually rearranged, sometimes using different scales, in a composition stemming from a rule of mathematical nature [that refers both to digital and the beginning of the cinema]. The latter is specific to each one of the original images which, in a way, impose it. It points to, highlights and amplifies a formal or narrative aspect. The curves of a body here, a gesture there… Conversely it also allows the complete reinterpretation of the image, the invention of a new one: Who would suspect that this bouquet of feminine silhouettes comes from a horizontal image featuring a rather sensible farandole of bathers? In any case Édouard Taufenbach has worked with an open jubilation. —I inject cinema, time and rhythm to my images. The viewer is the one who operates the fi lm strip— he says”. Étienne Hatt, Curator

Spéculaire “After years of research, Edouatd Taufenbach was able to work with an exceptional collection of anonymous images that director Sébastien Lifshitz has been gathering over several decades… By selecting with obsessive care, coherent corpuses of rare snapshots of leisure, pleasure and desire; he multiplied these silver on gelatin plates to be then fragmented and manually rearranged, sometimes using different scales, in a composition stemming from a rule of mathematical nature [that refers both to digital and the beginning of the cinema]. The latter is specific to each one of the original images which, in a way, impose it. It points to, highlights and amplifies a formal or narrative aspect. The curves of a body here, a gesture there… Conversely it also allows the complete reinterpretation of the image, the invention of a new one: Who would suspect that this bouquet of feminine silhouettes comes from a horizontal image featuring a rather sensible farandole of bathers? In any case Édouard Taufenbach has worked with an open jubilation. —I inject cinema, time and rhythm to my images. The viewer is the one who operates the fi lm strip— he says”. Étienne Hatt, Curator

Spéculaire “After years of research, Edouatd Taufenbach was able to work with an exceptional collection of anonymous images that director Sébastien Lifshitz has been gathering over several decades… By selecting with obsessive care, coherent corpuses of rare snapshots of leisure, pleasure and desire; he multiplied these silver on gelatin plates to be then fragmented and manually rearranged, sometimes using different scales, in a composition stemming from a rule of mathematical nature [that refers both to digital and the beginning of the cinema]. The latter is specific to each one of the original images which, in a way, impose it. It points to, highlights and amplifies a formal or narrative aspect. The curves of a body here, a gesture there… Conversely it also allows the complete reinterpretation of the image, the invention of a new one: Who would suspect that this bouquet of feminine silhouettes comes from a horizontal image featuring a rather sensible farandole of bathers? In any case Édouard Taufenbach has worked with an open jubilation. —I inject cinema, time and rhythm to my images. The viewer is the one who operates the fi lm strip— he says”. Étienne Hatt, Curator

Spéculaire “After years of research, Edouatd Taufenbach was able to work with an exceptional collection of anonymous images that director Sébastien Lifshitz has been gathering over several decades… By selecting with obsessive care, coherent corpuses of rare snapshots of leisure, pleasure and desire; he multiplied these silver on gelatin plates to be then fragmented and manually rearranged, sometimes using different scales, in a composition stemming from a rule of mathematical nature [that refers both to digital and the beginning of the cinema]. The latter is specific to each one of the original images which, in a way, impose it. It points to, highlights and amplifies a formal or narrative aspect. The curves of a body here, a gesture there… Conversely it also allows the complete reinterpretation of the image, the invention of a new one: Who would suspect that this bouquet of feminine silhouettes comes from a horizontal image featuring a rather sensible farandole of bathers? In any case Édouard Taufenbach has worked with an open jubilation. —I inject cinema, time and rhythm to my images. The viewer is the one who operates the fi lm strip— he says”. Étienne Hatt, Curator