F&D Cartier
contemporary experimental photography
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F&D Cartier Françoise et Daniel Cartier Via unique one off creations of photo-based woks in constant transformation, we question the sense of the image, memory and lost, Time. We experimentally probe the essence of photography, its fundamentals, light, photosensitive materials, the turning point of analogue photography to digital >post-digital photography.
Minimalist experiments and performance, found objects, work without a camera, darkroom or chemicals > Wait and See, 1998 – Today : on-going research, in-situ installations of expired photosensitive materials exposed directly to the light of the exhibition spaces, luminograms left in perpetual transformation, left unfixed. The shared experience engages the audience to face reality instead of looking at a picture, invites them to be patient, and the history of photography is retraced, echoing subjectively the historical and artistic collateral events of the 19th and 20th centuries, by selecting for each iteration of our installations expired photographic materials (1870-1990), from various sources (900 different ones), depending on the singular situation of each exhibition space, in particular its history, topography, location, …

Prochaine exposition & Book présentation > Public Art Space Juraplatz Biel/Bienne 02-10.09.2022
Prochaine exposition & Book présentation > Public Art Space Juraplatz Biel/Bienne 02-10.09.2022

nstallation, Photography, Video, Book Presentation

September 2 - September 10 - 2022

Book: ”The Never Taken Images. Photographic Paper Archive”, Scheidegger & Spiess, Zurich 07. 2022

In 1998, F&D Cartier began investigating the materiality or photographic paper in a work group entitled Wait and See. For them, the work is an exploration o the rudiments of the medium and a way of engaging with the flood of photographic images produced in the digital age. In their installations, the artists use expired photographic papers dating from the years 1890 to 2000, which have lost some of their sensitivity but still respond to light. Their exposure in the exhibition space triggers an ongoing process of slow change as their appearance constantly alters. Without an recourse to a camera or photochemistry, the duo thus brings to life images that were never taken and examines their potential. At the same time, their radically simplified experiment, designed to record light and time, connects back to the early days of the medium, when developing photographic paper was still unusual and daylight exposure was the principal means of blackening the silver salts. The surprising colors produced by the undeveloped gelatin silver emulsions reveal another invisible aspect of analog photography: in this way, F & D Cartier's experiment conveys a profound sense of the complexity of a material that was ubiquitous in the 20th century. Their experiments with photographic materials, which they embarked on together in 1995, have been devoted to themes relating to remembering, forgetting, and the passing of time.

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