The Galerie Christophe Gaillard is pleased to present Marina Gadonneix's third solo exhibition at the gallery, "recording in progress" from May 13 to June 17, 2023, echoing her current retrospective at the Centre Pompidou.
Florian Ebner, curator and head of Cabinet de la photographie department at the Centre Pompidou and curator with Matthias Pfaller of this exhibition Lynne Cohen / Marina Gadonneix: laboratories / observatories analyses Marina's work: Marina Gadonneix uses her photographic chamber to represent another chamber, as thought a little architecture were analyzing a larger one; reframing it and recomposing it; taking it apart and putting it back together; revealing it and transforming it. Gadonneix's embrace of the various interiors that epitomize our society of the spectacle and science has changed considerably over the past two decades, but a common logic remains. /.../
The art of deconstruction, as practiced by Gadonneix, begins with reframing or deframing these devices. The elements that remain off-screen in televised broadcasts become part of her images. In the same way, color-bar test patterns on large screens evoke a break in time, when the transmission of information flows is suspended in a state of exception wherein the entire media system appears to recalibrate itself. These are precisely the moments that the artist seeks out: in-between instants when the device is configured at its baseline of image representation. "Landscapes" is a project that continues this meditation on the baseline, substituting the test pattern's color bars with the vast monochrome swathes of blue and green used by digital chroma key compositing studios. /.../
In her series « Après l’image / After the Image » Gadonneix carried out research on studios dedicated to the photographic reproduction of artworks. She captured the moment after the fact, when the artwork had been removed from its reproduction stand, photographing the compositions of the various backgrounds and technical gimmicks: flashes, projectors, reflector boards, and absorbing surfaces. Each image is orchestrated between white and black around an empty scene created by the artwork's absence, becoming a mise en abyme of the image reproduction device itself.
Gadonneix's most recent major project draws us into the world of the French and US laboratories (i.e. CNRS sites, astronomical observatories, anechoic chambers, and top tier scientific research centers) that endeavor to simulate all forms of natural phenomena that (often drastically) impact human life: tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, meteorites, etc. /.../
Throughout her various projects, Marina Gadonneix has developed an approach characterized not only by her elegance, formal austerity, and subtle irony (which she shares with Lynne Cohen), but also by her ability to wonder at our world.
Elements extracted from the text "Une théorie relative du temps photographique selon Marina Gadonneix" (A relative theory of photographic time through the lens of Marina Gadonneix), Florian Ebner, text written for the monograph Marina Gadonneix, laboratoires/observatoires, Editions EXB and Centre Pompidou, 2023
