Hello, I’m pleased to announce my participation in the “Avant la lettre” exhibition in Valencia, Spain, this autumn!
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CNFAP is delighted to invite you to the opening of the exhibition “AVANT LA LETTRE”, an exchange between France and Spain as part of its “DIALOGUES” program.
A catalog and an artist’s book were produced for the occasion.
[Exposición] BEFORE THE LETTER Nov. 15, 2024 > Dec. 13, 2024 Opening, November 15, 6:30 pm
AVANT LA LETTRE is an interdisciplinary collaborative exhibition between the CIAE [Centre de recherche sur l’art et l’environnement] of the UPV [Université polytechnique de Valence] and the CNFAP [Conseil National Français des Arts Plastiques] of UNESCO, entities dedicated to the creation and dissemination of the visual arts.
This exhibition is organized by Amparo B. Wieden and the CNFAP Commission.
The exhibition venue Casa de la Cultura José Peris Aragó Calle del Mar, 1 46120 Alboraya Valencia Spain
Opening hours: Monday to Friday, 9:00 am to 9:00 pm and Saturday, 9:00 am to 2:00 pm
“in situ kinetic photography” first principle of a manifesto
I started practicing photography in 1983, and for ten years I had this idea of developing a research and aesthetic based on light, and the impact that light can have on our mind, our thoughts, and our perception of the universe.
I resumed this work in 2003, after taking a break from photography between 1993 and 2003. Nevertheless, my reflection on the image nourished this period of inactivity, which subsequently proved very rich and constructive for my photographic work.
Ten years later, in 2003, after thinking long and hard about the image, its role and its power, I continued my photographic work on light, as plastic or matter, with a fresh eye.
“Bangkok 2oo4” and other works from the same period show a body of work that drew inspiration from this time of reflection, introspection and maturation.
In this new era of digital imaging, this style of photography was not yet precisely named, but a decade later it was, under the name ICM (Intentional Camera Movement).
In the 20th century, some photographers devoted part of their work to this technical aspect of motion photography, such as, to name but a few, Kōtarō Tanaka (1905-1995), Ernst Haas (1921-1986), and Alexey Titarenko (b. 1962), who worked specifically on moving crowds.
In the early 2000s, my work on the moving image, with the idea of painting with light on my film or sensor, is very contemporary in approach, and remains on the bangs.
My work, which is based on the principle of intentional movement, has now evolved to bring a broader field to the ICM, which I call “in situ kinetic photography”. “In situ kinetic photography” brings a wider field to the “intentional camera movement” and takes into account different axes and planes, in situ, for the same exposure that oscillates from a few seconds to a few minutes.
“In situ kinetic photography” is similar to the ultrasound of a place that is produced like a micro-film, but which is recorded on a single image. It is therefore neither multiple exposures nor post-processing work. Its photography is part of the field of abstraction, or subjective abstraction. Its writing is done with light and photons constitute its alphabet. Its language is cosmic, its style dreamlike and its aesthetic plastic. This photography is similar to painting in the sense that it is constructed on site by composing the elements that are added to the image.
The brush or pencil is the light ray that contains the matter and energy of electromagnetic waves, while the canvas or paper is the film or the camera sensor. Unlike the painter or the calligrapher, it is not the brush that moves, but the support, that is to say the camera. It is also, in this sense, that the intention of “in situ kinetic photography” is in no way that of “light painting”, even if we can observe certain common points.
For this photograph, composed in situ, elements very dispersed on the site are carefully chosen to compose a photographic painting. After an analysis of the times allowing the addition of the elements to be photographed, the photographer will have to determine precisely the speed of the shutter, the aperture of the focal length, and the sensitivity of the film, according to any filters added.
For “in situ kinetic photography”, the intention is no longer movement, as in “intentional camera movement”, but that of constructing an abstract image with a plastic density that will suggest the superposition of quantum states of a geographical point that light crosses during its infinite odyssey.
Variations of Light opus 5 [click on the image to enlarge it]
I’m delighted to announce my participation in the Réalités Nouvelles Hors les Murs exhibition in Shenyang, China!
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抽象融合 – ABSTRACT CONVERGENCE
学米支持 ACADEMIC SUPPORT 奥利维尔 -迪埃-皮齐奥 OLIVIER DI PIZIO 艺未总临 ARTISTIC DIRECTOR 徐比莉 EMILY XU
策展人：甄熙 COMMISSARIAT：ZHENXI
14.09 〜 17.11.2024
法国新现实协会 艺术家群展 EXHIBITION BY ARTIST COLLECTIVE RÉALITÉS NOUVELLES – PARIS
展覧地点｜SHOWROOM 沈阳市铁西区兴华北街8号 1905文化创意园1905艺术空间
Click on each image to enlarge
ABOUT MY ARTWORK
VARIATIONS DE LUMIÈRE OPUS 5 Photographic triptych 2021 (33x150cm) Copy #2/3 (+1 EA)
This opus is a continuation of a reflection on the essence of light and its effect on the perception of Being in its immediate or cosmic environment.
Light fascinates me by the duality of its state, at once corpuscular and wave-like, but also for everything that makes it our perception of the world.
My “Variations de Lumière” (Variations of Light), arranged by opus, are images born of my observation of light, revealing the gap in perception between photographed reality and the photographic record.
It is a metaphor, but I would say that the medium of photography is particularly well-suited to this study, because the photons that strike my negative, materialized by impact points on the emulsion layer of silver halide crystals, or on the low-pass filter of a sensor, describe the corpuscular nature of light during the shooting phase.
Similarly, this material, used as a material, underlines the wave-like nature of light, when these impacts on the negative become oscillations on the paper.
From this observation of photons recorded at a moment “T” in their infinite course through the cosmos, at a precise point in the universe, comes this writing of light.
In my work, light is not always the source of its presence.
It’s also a reflection on the light that leads me to construct images, which by its absence, calls out to us in our confrontation with nothingness.
It is these deep blacks that reveal her, as much as our eye can become accustomed to restoring her presence in the evanescent appearance of forms produced by our mind.
Look closely at these images. They’ll reveal their secrets. There are multiple levels of interpretation.
The photographs are taken in such a way that shapes and silhouettes seem to move under the effect of our retina. Details change too, depending on the angle of view or the focus of our eye.
Perception therefore changes, depending on how we look at it, how bright it is, how much attention or concentration we bring to it, and the state of mind we’re in when we look at the image.
These photographs, taken with a Nikon F3, mounted with a Nikkor 50mm f1.4 or 105mm f2.5 lens and Kodak film, bear witness to my highly creative period in the ’80s. They show, in successive order: the beach at Le Lavandou, the outside fire escape at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, and a broken window in the former wasteland of Les Halles de la Villette in Paris.
The first silver photograph was a precursor to the work I’m still doing today. Taken at night, on the beach at Le Lavandou, with an exposure time of around 15 minutes, and shot at 720°, it recreates the electromagnetic atmosphere of a vacation and party spot, its beach, the black reflections of the sea and the rolling of the waves, the lights of boats, stars, the moon, coastal lighthouses and bars still barely lit.
A LONG-TERM COURSE… “who goes slowly, goes healthily”!
I took up photography in 1983, and spent ten passionate years with the idea of developing research and aesthetics based on “pure” light, and the impact it can have on our mind, our thoughts, or our perception of the universe.
The research I had begun on this subject was halted in 1993 by the upheaval caused by the arrival of digital technology in the world of photography.
It wasn’t until 10 years later, in 2003, after giving a great deal of thought to the image, its role and its power, that I took up this reflection and work again, using two media: digital and film photography.
In 2013, I opted to set up a company to develop this work over the long term.
Today, I exhibit and show my work in Paris, Europe and abroad.
Are you interested in following my work, discovering my new creations, and receiving invitations to my openings? You can register at this link: https: //www.ericpetr.net/contact/
With the aim of contributing and humbly bringing my knowledge to organizations working for the artistic cause in the world, I am happy to have been admitted to join the Board of Directors of the CNFAP in June 2024.
The CNFAP [Conseil National Français des Arts Plastiques] is an organization born out of the creation of the IAA-AIAP [International Association of Art – Association Internationale des Arts Plastiques].
The IAA-AIAP is an NGO emanating from UNESCO, whose foundations date back to 1948, and whose role was to investigate the ways in which artists could serve UNESCO’s objectives, and to discover what obstacles of a social, economic or political nature stand in the way of artists practising their art, throughout the world.
In 1954, the IAA-AIAP was fully constituted as an independent NGO affiliated to UNESCO. Its members are spread over five continents, and many countries in the world are represented by a UNESCO partner structure with direct links to the IAA-AIAP.
Artists such as Miro, Braque, Delaunay, Pasmore, Hartung, Laurencin, Matta, Lurçat, Masson, Vasarely, Moore, Soto, Cesar, Calder and many others have contributed to the growth of the IAA-AIAP. Today, other personalities from the artistic world continue to work to defend the rights of artists worldwide.
Each member holds an IAA-AIAP Card recognized and accepted by museums and art institutions worldwide. It is also an important identification for artists in their professional artistic pursuits. It is awarded by the National Committee of the artist’s country of residence. In France, it will be issued by the CNFAP.
The CNFAP was set up by the French Ministry of Education’s Direction Générale des Arts et des Lettres in 1956, to officially represent France at the IAA-AIAP and promote dialogue and exchange between artists worldwide.
The CNFAP’s founder-members include twenty eminent artists such as Georges Braque, Roger Chapelain-Midy, André Dunoyer de Segonzac, Marcel Gromaire, Marie Laurencin, André Lhote…
Joining the CNFAP as a member artist is usually by co-option. Interested in joining our team? I invite you to read the rules for applying at this link. http://preprod.cnfap-artsplastiques.org/adherer/
Éric Petr installation in connection with Tanabata during Rendez-vous aux Jardins 2018
This article is an excerpt from JAPAN, AN ART OF LIVING, where we tell you about life in Japan, its anecdotes but also its complex social codes and how visitors can access certain places more easily, while remaining courteous. A sort of instruction manual for travelers to Japan. I recommend it! https://nipponjaponetiquette.blogspot.com/
The Tanabata Festival 七夕祭り
The Tanabata Festival 七夕祭り is a festival (matsuri 祭り) which is celebrated on July 7 of each year in Japan. On this occasion, people come to hang ex-votos in the bamboos, small colorful pieces of paper on which they write their wishes.
Tanabata is a traditional festival originating from O-Bon お盆, a Japanese Buddhist matsuri celebrating the festival of the ancestors, or from the Chinese star festival Qīxī 七夕 which in Chinese means ” night of the seventh month “, which explains why Tanabata matsuri 七夕祭り is celebrated every year on July 7.
The legend of Tanabata 七夕 may differ depending on the oral tradition of the stories, but they’re all pretty much the same.
This is the wonderful story of two stars, Vega (Orihime) and Altair (Hikoboshi), who fall madly in love and meet again on the seventh night of the seventh month of every year.
The star Orihime 織姫, Princess Weaver lived on the banks of the Celestial River (our Milky Way) Amanogawa 天の川. Her nimble fingers created the most beautiful fabrics in the Universe, and her sublime beauty filled her father, Sky Lord 天帝, with happiness.
But her father could not take full advantage of this happiness, knowing his daughter suffered from loneliness as she worked. Orihime would have liked to have had a little time to meet, one day, the Prince Charming she so often dreamed of.
So the Lord of Heaven decided to arrange a meeting for his daughter. One day, in all discretion, he presented her to the sparkling Star Hikoboshi 彦星, shining on its constellation like an eagle in full flight. Hikoboshi was incredibly hardworking and watched over his cows from across the Celestial Amanogawa River with an attention and diligence that made him the best herdsman in the Universe.
When they saw each other for the first time, it was cosmic love at first sight. Since that day, Star Orihime and Star Hikoboshi never separated and soon got married.
But love had blinded them and detached them from their main task, from what they knew how to do best in the Universe. This is how Orihime stopped making her beautiful fabrics and Hikoboshi started neglecting her work, which triggered the Sky Lord’s wrath.
Annoyed by the presence of cows wandering all over the sky and no longer having the slightest cloth to cover themselves with, he had to put an end to the lovemaking of the young couple and forbade them to see each other again. Again, the Heavenly River Amanogawa separated the two Stars.
But this terrible separation made the Weaver Princess very, very sad and her face turned into a lake of tears. Her father could no longer bear the grief of his daughter, which caused an unbearable tear in him.
He then proposed to the two Stars, Orihime and Hikoboshi, to meet again each year, on the condition that they work as they used to do in the past. And so the couple set to work diligently to meet on the seventh night of the seventh month of every year.
When that long-awaited day came for the first time, they realized that they could only see each other, without being able to embrace, for the Celestial River that separated them had no bridge.
Then Princess Orihime cried so much, that thousands of magpies came and promised to build a bridge with their wings so that the lovers could cross the Celestial River and embrace each other.
Since then, every year at the same time, we write wishes on small pieces of paper, called Tanzaku 短冊, dedicated to the little poems that we also hang in the bamboos so that Orihime and Hikoboshi will answer our prayers.
The legend of Tanabata was integrated into the Popii opus 1 installation, presented during “Rendez-vous au Jardins” 2018 in the Bamboo Chapel of the Jardin Sauvage de Cabriès (France).
In the 90s, I stopped photography after ten years of passion.
In those years, digital photography arrived and supplanted film photography in just a few years. A tidal wave that shook an entire industry. All photographers will have something to say about this era, often recounting a painful moment.
For my part, a great sadness seized me. I buried my equipment and my work as if to forget forever this passion for which I had devoted so much time and for which everything seemed to disappear forever.
Ten years later, I slowly returned to the image scene like an addict returning to his drug.
It was with the Nikon Df, in 2013, that I rediscovered the lost pleasures of film photography. This camera seemed to me to be the closest thing to silver-based practice, not in the process, but rather in the way it felt to take the shot. Nikon Df is the kind of substitute that photograhpy addicts can take to fool their bodies and minds. But of course, the feeling is deceptive and, despite everything, unsatisfactory.
It had to come to this, to close the loop and, to bring out the old gear from the 80s, recapture the divine sensations of silver halide and continue the journey with our first loves.
Today, I no longer take pleasure in digital technology, and it is essential for me to continue my quest where my raft ran aground.
⚪️ Click on the images to see them in silver grain detail ⚪️
On the way to Arles – Éric Petr, 2024 | Nikon F3T, Nikkor NC24 f2.8 & Ilford Delta 100
It is probably difficult for many people to understand this relationship with film photography. But film photography is an extraordinary tool!
Once you’ve got the hang of it, you will feel like you have gone from a modern car to a vintage one, without any further assistance.
You shoot and do not have to worry about checking whether your photo was actually taken. Your gesture and technique with film must be beyond reproach, otherwise all your images will be lost forever. Silver halide is a technique with no net and no room for error. Concentration is total and the choice to shoot takes on its full value and meaning. Your choice of film will depend on the type of work you want to achieve, and the same goes for developing the film, with the different developers and exposure times that will bring a particular style to your image.
And then there is the grain of film! This magnificent grain is not the result of the digital recording of electromagnetic waves through a low-pass filter, but of the photochemical process of exposing light to an emulsion of silver halide crystals.
The plastic result is so different!
Approach, enter, zoom into a silver image and see these clouds of crystals in infinite colors or shades of gray, like the dots in an etching or the particles that make up stellar clusters.
Over the last few years, I have been amazed and delighted to see that silver-based photography is gradually making a comeback, not as a mass-market application, but as an alternative creative practice.
Generally taken up by young people curious about the medium, traditional photography has risen from the ashes to occupy the artistic field, and many associated activities have developed in parallel, such as laboratories for developing film and prints on photosensitive paper, training courses in silver photography, small publishing houses dedicated to the authors of this old photography with a fresh eye, as well as numerous stores selling second-hand equipment and silver film of all types.
So, in the 21st century, silver or digital photography?
Beyond this choice, photography is a commitment, a way of seeing, feeling and describing the world around us.
These images were created at the heart of the Nebuta Matsuri held in Nakano in October 2023.
Aomori Nebuta Matsuri is a major festival in the Tōhoku region, designated as UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage.
It is an incredible parade of costumed dancers (haneto 跳人), taiko 太鼓 players and huge floats, shimmering in color and lit up at night.
As a sign of support for this region of northeastern Japan, which was devastated by the terrible earthquake of 2011, Nakano Town Hall in Tōkyō has been organizing its own festival since 2012 under the name “Nakano Festival to Support Tōhoku”, where Aomori’s Nebuta Matsuri takes place in October every year.
“It is a wave that you feel deep inside your body. The drums beating with all their power, the crowd in effervescence, the colorful dances, sometimes jerky and sometimes delicate, the flute tunes that pierce this orderly din, everything is so energetic that the senses are sucked into this whirlwind of fervor. In the midst of this bubbling, it seems as if this visual and sonic material is melting together. Letting myself be carried along by the current of this lively crowd, I try to capture, with my camera, this exaltation, this bubbling mass of individuals gathered for this marvelous festival. Here and there, with long breaths from my shutter, I record faces, hands, colors, dancers, percussionists in action, and all this visual material accumulates in successive layers on my sensor, like those of a painter on his canvas, to restore all the density and depth of the scene. These eighteen photographs are excerpts from the sixty that tell the poetic story of Aomori’s Nebuta Matsuri.“
You can enlarge the image by zooming[Ctrl] and [+]
Photographs ささやき 2023, on sale to benefit the victims of 01.01.24 of Wajima
After the violent earthquake in Japan that hit the Noto Peninsula on 01.01.2024,I decided to offer two photographs for a charity sale to benefit the victims of Wajima, because I felt it was necessary for this work, which is closely linked to the earthquake of 05.05.2023, to contribute, however modestly, to the reconstruction of the town of Wajima.
Half the proceeds will be donated to the Wajima Disaster Relief Organization. ・The first half corresponds to my royalties and remuneration. ・The second half corresponds to the running costs of my Studio, taxes and charges as well as the costs of Fine Art paper and pigment ink. ・This purchase offer is valid throughout 2024.
Would you be interested in making this donation? Please click on the link below:
!! My wife being Japanese, the donation will be directly redistributed by Japanese bank transfer to the Japanese Red Cross in Ishikawa Prefecture, as soon as the artwork has been delivered to you. We will provide you with the certificate of proof of the deposit made in Yen by my wife !!
Characteristics of the 2 works
Title work left: ささやき 0x608EBF51 Title work on the right: ささやき 0x604ABB51 (Sold out) Year: 2023 Copy: #2/3 (Limited edition 3 copies + 1AP) Dimensions: 30x30cm Technique: In situ long exposure digital photography Nikon DF camera with Nikkor H-85mm f1.8 Printing: Pigment inks on Hahnemühle paper Fine Art Bright White Rag 310g Signature: Signed on back Certificate of Authenticity: Yes Frame: Light oak box with museum glass Note: Very discreet imperfections visible on the edge of the frame (-10% discount deducted) Free: My “Spirituelles Odyssées” author’s book (€35 value)
But why offer these two photographic works in aid of the victims of Wajima?
When I visited Japan during the spring of 2023, I went to Kenroku-en Park in Kanazawa on the night of May 4-5. It was a full moon night and I heard a symphony of natural elements. These hundred-year-old trees, these lakes that have spanned the dynasties and this moon so radiant, brought me the sensation of being on the stage of a theater nō.
The energy I captured that night was so strong, so radiant, so penetrating that the beauty of nature was sublimated, and its complicity with the cosmos clearly understood. It seemed that all this beauty was in motion, and that it was entering a marvellous, supernatural dance.
A few hours later, I was on my way by bus to Suzu in the north of the Noto Peninsula, when we were suddenly stopped in our tracks on May 5, 2023 at 2:42 pm by a violent 6.5 magnitude earthquake, which were followed by numerous aftershocks over a 24-hour period.
I then realized that, that night, in Kenroku-en Park, I had picked up the whisper of an earthquake.
I then decided to call this photographic work ささやき (sasayaki), which means “murmurs “.
As chance would have it, or rather the synchrony of events or an order that eludes us, I subsequently exhibited two photographs from this series at the Gallery Ville A des Arts in Paris with UNESCO’s CNFAP in October 2023.
When I learned on January 1, 2024, that a magnitude 7.6 earthquake had struck the same spot at 16:10 Japan time, I was stunned and overwhelmed.
All the impressions I’d felt during the aftershocks suddenly came back to me, the whole night after we’d tried to sleep on the 9th floor of a hotel on the harbor in the town of Wajima, now devastated by this latest earthquake, in fear of a possible tsunami.
I also felt a great deal of compassion for the Japanese people affected, who had suddenly become homeless, injured or victims, but also a great deal of sadness for this small town where we had wandered with our friends through the pretty streets of the morning market and its atmosphere, which seemed so timeless.
This photographic work consists of just twelve photographs. Twelve images of such density that you don’t need much more to understand the vibratory beauty of this whisper.
The two photographs I’m offering for sale here were exhibited in Paris in October 2023. While the others are waiting for a new story to tell before being shown again.
It seemed obvious to me that this work, in direct resonance with the May 2023 earthquake, had to play a part, however humbly, in Wajima City’s victim relief efforts.
