jeudi 31 mars 2011

Chris Marker /// Passengers /// Peter Blum gallery



The exhibition is comprised of more than two hundred photographs taken by Marker between 2008 and 2010. The series, which is Marker’s first in color, are images of passengers traveling on the Paris Métro.
PASSENGERS captures the many private actions and gestures that take place daily in the public sphere. Mothers cradling their children, couples whispering intimately, women wistfully staring out the window or into the middle distance, engrossed in their own personal thoughts. In several of the shots, we see whole train cars filled with similarly disengaged people. Taken as a complete body of work, this series very clearly illustrates the various ways in which people create invisible walls and boundaries in order to cope with modern urban life. Chris Marker further to the photographs he takes, enhances, changes or colors his images on the computer, giving them often an eerie, almost otherworldly presence.
All of the images will be reproduced in a book published by Peter Blum Edition, which will be released in conjunction with the exhibition. The book will feature over two hundred color images with texts by Chris Marker and Peter Blum.
The exhibition will travel to France where it will be included as part of the internationally renowned Les Rencontres d’Arles Photographie Festival in the Summer of 2011.

le site de la galerie Peter Blum


Illustrations: 1_Chris Marker, PASSENGERS, Untitled # 1, 2008-2010 /// 2_ Chris Marker, PASSENGERS, Untitled # 45, 2008-2010 /// 
3_Chris Marker, La jetée, 1962: Une catastrophe nucléaire a détruit toute vie humaine à la surface de la terre. Paris a été rayé de la carte, et seuls survivent quelques hommes dans les souterrains de Chaillot. Les « vainqueurs » de cette guerre nucléaire cherchent le moyen de sauver la race humaine. Pour cela, ils font des expériences sur les individus qu’ils ont fait prisonniers et essaient de les envoyer dans un autre temps. « Tel était le but des expériences : projeter dans le Temps des émissaires, appeler le passé et l’avenir au secours du présent. »