Posted on
2021-12-13
A portrait can be anonymous without losing any of its power or distinctive quality. In July 1974, Patrick Faigenbaum was 20 years old. He was walking around the city of Boston when he noticed a man on a bench, his face hidden, body huddled up, in an attitude of pain or withdrawal. The wall behind him is striated by the shadows of foliage, natural paintbrush strokes on a concrete wall. The photograph the artist takes touches on “the limit where the portrait tends to dissolve into the immense domain of the picturesque,” as art critic Jean-François Chevrier underlines. A solitary image that echoes his more recent work, Rue de Crimée, also presented in the exhibition. The four photographs, devoid of voyeurism and pessimism, show homeless people, living in the street next to Patrick Faigenbaum’s home. They are actors in his daily life, whose use of the same urban space appears to be the sole point in common. The cold tones echo the harsh realities of life suggested by the images. The dignity of Patrick Faigenbaum’s models is omnipresent in all of his work; his focus bestows, on those he photographs – Samantha, Erzica and all the others, acquaintances or anonymous – “a place and a stature, a stable ground and structure.”
Opposite – Composition autour d’une grappe de raisin, Santulussurgiu, 2019
Exhibition runs through to March 5th, 2022
Galerie Nathalie Obadia
3 rue du Cloître Saint-Merri
75004 Paris
www.nathalieobadia.com
