 Jean-Christian Bourcart Traffic Photography Alvaro Roquette is pleased to present French photographer Jean-Christian Bourcart's "Traffic" for the first time in Portugal. It is an exhibition of large-scale colour photographs that portray anonymous characters caught in the relentless traffic jam below Bourcart's windows on Canal Street in New York City where he lives. Jean-Christian Bourcart is well-known for his series "Infertile Madonnas" (1992) and "Forbidden City" (1998-2001) taken with a hidden camera in a Frankfurt brothel and S&M/swingers clubs in New York and Paris (respectively). His 2001 series "Traffic" also reveals an unfair trade between the photographer and his subjects. Again Bourcart positions himself as a voyeur who this time has replaced his hidden camera by a telephoto lens. But in this series, the photographer exposes himself to the visibility of those strangers. And Bourcart delights in portraying them as they react to his presence with surprise, disbelief or irritation. For Bourcart, it is only at this moment that he is able to capture their true self: vulnerable and authentic, without the necessary lapse to adapt to social conventions. Bourcart's subjects are caught in a human traffic jam from which they are singled out to reveal their fragility and individuality. Bourcart converts his solitary pleasure into a public mirror: a touching mirror that reflects a well-known image of solitude, isolation, and vulnerability. He steals his subjects' intimacy to give it to his viewers. These contrasted images make of "Traffic" a unique photographic work of urban poetry. About "Infertile Madonnas", Nan Goldin wrote: "Viewing his prints was like looking through a door into an underlit world where the stories are not explicated or overtly articulated, but remain secretive, left for the viewer to discern and to discover. It also seemed to contain a quality rare in contemporary photography: honesty". Like stills from a raw Super-8 film, Jean-Christian's photographs are intensely filmic in the best sense of the word, and unlike the current rage in art photography for constructed narratives or "believable fictions", these are journeys in real life. They retain the values of chance and of risk, of going into the world where one's vision is expanded by what one experiences". Jean-Christian Bourcart was born in Colmar (France) in 1960 and resides in New York City. His work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie, the Centre National de la Photographie, and Galerie du Jour Agnès B. in Paris, Catherine Bastide Gallery in Brussels, Reflex Gallery in Amsterdam, the Lambert Collection in Avignon, Kagan Martos Gallery and Artists Space in New York, and the Encontros da Imagem 2004 in Braga, Portugal. His work is represented in public and private collections worldwide such as those of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain in Geneva, the Fond National d'Art Contemporain and the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris, the Soros Foundation in Sarajevo, Agnès B., and Robert Hunt. Several monographs have been published, including: "Traffic", Leo Scheer Editions, with a conversation with Brigitte Ollier (2004); "Infertile Madonnas", TDM Editions, with a preface by Nan Goldin (2002); "Forbidden City", Le Point du Jour Editions, with a preface by Régis Jauffret and a conversation with Brigitte Ollier (1999). Curated by Caroline Pagès Exhibition: 19 May - 12 June 2005 Opening hours: Tues-Sun noon - 8 pm Alvaro Roquette . Arte Rua do Monte Olivete, 34 A e B P-1200-280 Lisbon Telephone/Fax +351 213 421 682 Email alvaro.roquette@mail.pt |
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