Point of encounter – Point of departure

Sylvie Henguely Excerpt

F&D Cartier – Giving Form to Light

In the same vein as the monochromes of Françoise, the first collaborative work of the duo shows a strong tendency to abstraction. In a competition they won in 1998, the Prix Jordi, Françoise and Daniel presented a project entitled A-venir. Le temps d’être suisse (“To-come. The time to be Swiss,” with a word play on “future” and the verb “to come”). Here they presented their reflections on the Swiss Confederation in the form of 26 surfaces of differing sizes and colors, representing the twenty-six Swiss cantons. These are arranged in alphabetical order, and are represented according to their geographic area. Seven kinds of photographic paper, assigned randomly, and seven conventional print formats distinguish the cantons and translate them into a language specific to photographic technique. Starting with the opening of the exposition, the unused papers are exposed to the light; without being developed, they react by taking on various pastel shades. As days pass, these shade become thicker and more intense. A system of imposed, rigid constraints (alphabetic order and standard formats) thus combines with the uncontrollable color changes in the papers. The ensemble is, above all, an evolving process. It is without doubt the most severely minimalist creation of the duo’s “pink period,” and it seems to want to erase the past, opening a new chapter on a fresh page. From now on, A-venir. Le temps d'être suisse sets the tone: pink and conceptual.