Galerie Christophe Gaillard is delighted to present an exhibition
devoted to the work of French photographer Marina Gadonneix (b. 1977).
A graduate of the École Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie d’Arles, the artist harmoniously blends documentary and fiction in her photographs, often exposing the intricacies of our screen culture. More specif- ically, she is drawn to places or sites that are temporarily deserted, such as film sets, photographers’ studios or scientific laboratories. By capturing their intermediate states, the artist exposes the way in which reality is simulated and constructed, drawing attention to the way in which our environment is continually in the process of being brought into being. These are not only images of what appears, but also of what can hypnotise the gaze and sharpen the imagination, both through the incomprehensibility of the seen and the conceivability of the unknown.
— I like to say that I’m an artist-researcher. When I start a project, I have an instinct for places and a curiosity about how they were built. My work requires a lot of permission to visit places, but the challenge is not to gain access to forbidden places and visit them in a journalistic way. What interests me is what they can tell us about the society in which I live today.
Materiality and immateriality, light and coloured spectrums, presence and absence, reality and fiction are the recurring dualities found in this artist’s photographs.
Marina Gadonneix’s work has been exhibited in numerous institutions in Europe and North America. She has had solo exhibitions at the Centre Pompidou in Paris (2023), Fotohof in Salzburg (2023), French Institute New York (2023), Jeu de Paume in Paris (2022), Rencontres photographiques d’Arles (2019, 2012, 2007), Kunsthalle Tübingen (2007), Point du Jour in Cherbourg (2016), MOMENTA at the Musée d’Art Joliette, Canada (2019), ...
Her works are also present in various collections such as Centres Georges Pompidou, Paris (FR), FRAC Auvergne, Clermont-Ferrand (FR), FRAC Normandie, Rouen (FR), BNF - Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris (FR), Meeschaert Collection, Paris (FR), HSBC Collection, Paris (FR).
To date, she has won the Prix Niépce (2020), the Dummy Book Award - Fondation LUMA (2018), the Prix Hors les Murs de l’Institut français (2016) and the HSBC Prize for Photography (2006). Recently, she also won the Lewis Baltz Research Fund for her new project ‘Factories of the Social Fabric’.
