CHEVEUX LONGS... CHEVEUX COURTS by Katrien De Blauwer

ベルギー人コラージュアーティスト、カトリアン・デ・ブラウワー(Katrien De Blauwer)の作品集。2019年にベルギー・アントワープのギャラリー「GALLERY FIFTY ONE」で開催された同名展覧会に伴い刊行。過去作品に引き続き、本展でも 「カメラを用いない写真」を追求、1920年代から60年代までの雑誌を探し、その断片を用いて再構成する。様々な手法を実験的に用い、常に進化し続けている。常に作品の根底には「フィルムノワール」やヨーロッパの「アヴァンギャルド映画(前衛映画)」への言及が潜んでいるが、それは使用する画像そのものだけでなく、その扱い方からも見て取れる。その「断片」を、ハサミや鉛筆、絵筆などで「編集」し、そのシーンを物語の中に投入する。静止画で始まり静止画で完結しているにも関わらず、展覧会を見始めたり本書を開くことで、この想像性に溢れた作品は動き始めるのである。大切な部分を切り取り、残った部品も「関連したもの」として残し、予想だにしない本質に気づくようにする。その断片は作者の記憶の集合でもあり、それを用いてまるで作者が自分自身の物語を描くかのように登場人物である若い女性のストーリーを綴り、自分自身を振り返っている。本書のタイトルや、各章のタイトルとして用いられた女性たちの名前は、新聞や雑誌から文字だけをピックアップして収集した作者のノートから芽吹いたものである。('cheveux longs... cheveux courts by Katrien De Blauwer' 展プレスリリースより抜粋)

この本の各章につけられたタイトルは、我々に夢を見させてくれたアイコニックなフランスの女優たちの名前にちなんで名付けられたが、同時にそれは『匿名』の女性にもなりうる。パリの通りや晴れた田舎道を渡り、その姿に我々は息を飲む。もしかしたら、彼女たちは皆カトリアンなのかもしれない。そしてそれこそが、この作品の世界へ入っていく方法なのであろう。
ー Roger Szmulewicz(GALLERY FIFTY ONE オーナー)

"After her first solo show in FIFTY ONE TOO last year, Gallery FIFTY ONE is proud to welcome back Katrien De Blauwer (Belgium, 1969) with 'cheveux longs… cheveux courts.' In this new show the artist revisits herself as a young woman by creating personae and telling their stories as if they were her own. Additionally, a new set of her more erotic 'Dirty Scenes' is presented. For the public, De Blauwer has become known as the "photographer without a camera", compulsively seeking out magazines from the 1920s through the 1960s, cutting them up and reassembling fragments into frugal yet powerful compositions. But already in her first solo show, 'Double', it had become apparent that the artist strove to transcend the limitations of the collage medium. The transformation De Blauwer had set in motion then, has now come full circle. She has been progressively shifting shapes; e.g. experimenting with more slender works, stressing their horizontality or verticality. (…) One element that always remains unchanged in De Blauwer’s itinerary, is the omnipresent reference to film noir and European avant-garde cinema. This not only comes about through the filmic images she uses, but also through the way they are treated. De Blauwer 'edits' her fragments with scissors, pencil and brush, before throwing these scenes into a sequence that tells the story of a woman. These imaginative sequences – beginning and ending with a 'still' image – come into motion the moment we start walking through the exhibition or start leafing through the new book that accompanies this exhibition. Ingeniously, the artist cuts away vital pieces of information, 'relating’ the scraps that are left, and thus urging us to open up to unforeseen insights. De Blauwer treats these fragments as if they were her own past life experiences. Combined with the popular imagery she uses, her personal 'Erinnerungsarbeit' attains the level of collective memory. This work, the remembering through reassembling, is a daily routine – if not obsession – for the artist. Her obsession with fragments is indeed so great, that even the title of this exhibition, as well as the names of its 'chapters' (ISABELLE, caroline, SOPHIE…), have sprouted from her notebooks, in which she collects text fragments from newspapers, magazines, etc." (From 'cheveux longs... cheveux courts by Katrien De Blauwer' / GALLERY FIFTY ONE)

"The chapters in this new FIFTY ONE Publication could be named after iconic French actresses that have made us dream, but could as well be the anonymous women that have crossed our path in Paris’s streets or on a sunny country lane and for a moment taken our breath away. They all might be Katrien. And this is how I’d like you to dive into cheveux longs... cheveux courts." (Roger Szmulewicz, owner of Gallery FIFTY ONE)

The FIFTY ONE Publication 'cheveux longs… cheveux courts' is released on the occasion of the eponymous exhibition at Gallery FIFTY ONE, Antwerp (BE), 10.09 - 26.10.2019.

by Katrien De Blauwer

REGULAR PRICE ¥3,960  (tax incl.)

softcover
88 pages
210 x 150 mm
color
2019

published by GALLERY FIFTY ONE