MADE IN CHINA

EMMANUEL GALLAND, SAMUEL LAMBERT

MADE IN CHINA

  • Exhibition
© Emmanuel Galland and Samuel Lambert, exhibition "Made in China", Galerie B-312, 1997.

Emmanuel Galland and Sanuel Lambert have been collaborating for several years on different projects. Most recently, in September 1996, they presented a duo at the Clark Art and Diffusion Centre in Montreal.

31 May 1997 to 28 June 1997

Entitled Made in China, the exhibition brings together the recent works of Emmanuel Galland and Samuel Lambert. Around the seriality of the large format and the representation of the human figure, two artists once again explore the cultural and emotional links that are woven into their respective photographic works. Emmanuel Galland, with Twins, is interested in the figurine as a model of identification specific to the field of childhood. The same plastic figure in two copies, produced industrially in series, is chosen by the artist for its astonishing disparities with its double, the clone. In order to highlight these notable differences, the figurines are presented in very large colour formats. Changing the scale of the small model shows the existence of multiplicity even in a process aimed at uniformity. A hitch in the production line, a nod to the idea of perfection. Samuel Lambert, for his part, spreads out in a straight line photograms from a video he made a few years ago: De barro et d'argile. Two faces respond to each other from one end of the series to the other, that of an elderly man and that of a young woman, both Asian. This still image nevertheless retains a striking motion effect, from the most complete blurring of the elements to the partial recognition of the context of the shot. In the parade of dissolved images in the saturated colours of Chinatown, an encounter is transformed before our eyes according to an oscillating movement from the videographic to the photographic. The parallel between the works highlights the contrast between fixity and instability inherent in the photographic device. The two artistic practices respond to each other through their sustained exploration of the possibilities of representation of the human being.Made in China: it is in alterity that reversibility is constructed. And vice versa.

Translated from a text by MANON LÉVESQUE