Benoît Barbagli: photography to bring joy!
The more difficult the collapse, the more joy will be necessary: this is the manifesto of the catalog of the first solo exhibition of Benoît Barbagli. All around the water To pave the way for the 60th anniversary Fluxus retrospective at the Eva Vautier gallery in Nice, opening on 25 November 2022 and ending on Saturday 28 Januarye is the anniversary of the movement. Aren’t we already faced with a beautiful legacy when a young photographer questions the ethics of the image and the imprint it leaves, both freely and premeditatedly during the performance, capturing the questions of the authors or the models during the shooting of nature? collective *.
Benoit Barbagli, who has been collaborating with the PALAM collective (Latin for “in his presence”), of which he is one of the founding members, since 2018, says that creating common is an act of resistance. “What interests me is not the technicality of time in photography, but the human plasticity that it calls forth and captures.” Benoit Barbagli, who placed himself in the group as a model and used the protocol of a flying camera that literally went hand-to-hand during filming, explains.
“And then said A good way to deconstruct 2,000 years of patriarchy, especially when it comes to looking at naked bodies; but also to confuse the concept of author and model. And then water has the ability to “desexualize” naked bodies. » The lack of clothing creates an archetypal revival of myths, Benoît Barbagli noted, whose photographs sometimes approach painting and make one think of some of the graces of the Pre-Raphaelite graces, as well as their dogmas. “For the naked, submerged many, the intricacies of our culture are deconstructed, the first link of nature, the ubiquitous, impassable, direct connections are reestablished. says the artist. When creating an image, neither composition nor visual or conceptual originality is sought; it is the connection between individuals surrounded by nature and the harmonious resonance of emotions that for Benoît Barbagli constitutes aesthetics: the ethics of perception. One of the prisms of this series ” All around the water was to desexualize bodies as much as possible. »In one of the large shots on display at the Eva Vautier gallery, three young men carry a stone covered with moss, immersed in the aquamarine transparency of a stream reflecting the blue of a spring day: Collective Sisyphus! But what does this have to do with myth? “ Several underwater corpses floating in a circle under the water, without clothes, without tools, without words, – asks the artist. As an answer : several frantic movements to reach the surface, breathe and dive again, in apnea, weightlessness? The action described here is as ironic as Sisyphus’s – moving a stone from one place to another, taken from under water. “By contrast, Barbagli continues, that the action takes place in three. Without this commonality, ecological thinking turns into nonsense, planetary limits are exceeded one by one. “, – continues the artist who did not finish his performance. small 1, rBarbaghli’s protocol is to bring joy by bringing together favorable conditions for taking group photos in nature. But what can joy do? ” It is the binder of our interactions, to act, to build collectively, – the artist explains enthusiastically. By making it possible commonbecomes an act of resistance. This is a revolutionary tool! »
The exhibition is presented with three plaster and cement sculptures placed on a table in the center of the main room: pillars of the anthropoceneas three 3D footprints that bear witness to scientific climate data over time (chronos. Helios and Chronos It shows the curve of changes in the temperature of the earth during 2000 years, Tethys and Chronos, 300 years of rising waters; Eros and Chronos comments on biodiversity and its successive declines over the past 600 million years. One is stalling, another is spreading, and the third seems to have failed. Although Barbagli’s sculptural works indicate a way of being in the world, his photographic prints (debts) tend towards other alternatives: Around water, there is every aspect of life!
*The gallery screened a film within the Ovni video-art festival immersion, A series of videos about the creation of the photographs in the exhibition, as well as by artists Mona Barbagli, Tristan Blumel, Evan Bourgeau, Aimée Fleury, Camille Franch-Guerra and Justine Leroy.
Practical information> On every side of the water, November 27 – January 28, 2023– Solo exhibition of Benoit Barbagli
Gallery Eva Vautier, 2 rue Vernier Liberation district 06000 Nice. Wednesday to Saturday from 14:00 to 19:00. 24/24 online store every day www.eva-vautier.com – galerie@eva-vautier.com Tel. : 09 80 31 76 63
Visual opening > Benoit Barbagli, Sisyphus Collective III, 2021- photo credit: detail, shot. Orevo
