Chimène Denneulin

Des palmiers, un jeune homme tatoué, une fille voilée, une vieille Subaru, un contai-ner, un mur de béton, une rue boueuse ; de Mexico, Bamako, Pékin à San Francisco, Ramallah ou Hébron, Chimène Denneulin arpente le monde, pour en saisir, par le médium photographique, la globalité, à travers la diversité des stigmates de la mondialisation et des références culturelles communes. Portraits d’adolescents, objets et paysages urbains se confrontent dans le dialogue frontal d’une ville-monde, métisse et universelle. Plus abstraits que métaphoriques, les portraits des adolescents dont l’artiste a fait un sujet de prédilection artistique, deviennent ici les icônes mêmes du monde, tels des « soleils de la conscience »* révélateurs d’identités qui s’échappent du carcan vernaculaire, dans un processus inéluctable qui rapproche les humanités multiples, de façon vertigineuse, les unes vers les autres. Un point de vue potentiellement documentaire qui s’empare d’une plasticité a contrario du réalisme photographique cher aux reportages socio-eth-nologiques. Détourages sauvages sous Photoshop, addition graphique de fonds mono-chromes de couleurs ostensibles accolés aux images ou sur lesquels viennent vivement se détacher les silhouettes, les usages numériques contemporains et les techniques de communication visuelle donnent une dimension plastique hétéroclite et brute qui confère à ses montages photographiques un statut proche de celui de l’objet-livre. Etendues, dépliées, les pages de Chimène Denneulin déploient une matière-monde chaotique, pro-visoire et inattendue.

Mai Tran, Cahier spécial 303 - Projets d’artistes en Pays de la Loire, 2011

*Edouard Glissant, Soleil de la conscience, 1956, Poétique I, Paris, Gallimard, rééd. 1997.

A TAble of ConTenTs

AfriCAWhile Africa appealed to the imagination of 20th century artists who found in it a model of an untamed art capable of regenerating their research, today, with its specific urban condition, sprawling and semi-rural, its globalized economy and the emergence of a black culture within postcolonial studies, it inspires works that seek to bring out its complexity. Thus, rue bamako (bamako street), 2005, portrays a typical African city. its muddy ground is a moving surface where a mixed population converges – local, Western and Asian – along with a cart, used cars and market shacks displaying more imported produce than exotic vegetables. The melting pot of tomorrow’s world is revealed before our eyes(> Concrete, Globalization).

roberT beChTlefrom 1963, after a voyage to europe and a car trip across the United states that made him realize how much this mode of transport “represents the essence of the American experience” (in catalogue of California Classic: realist Paintings by robert bechtle, oakland Museum of California, 2000), the artist robert bechtle (b. 1932), began making paintings from photographs taken from his window. he depicted cars such as the “46 ‘Chevy”, “56’ Chrysler” or “61’ Pontiac” in front of private garages, car parks or on the streets of san francisco, in an objective style that he links to the tradition of Dutch still lifes. like in the works of robert bechtle, Véhicule vert Palestine (Green Vehicle Palestine), 2009, or Véhicule noir Mexique(black Vehicle Mexico), 2010, show anonymous, ordinary cars. however, like samples in a serial development, they are photographed frontally, in a tight framing that isolates them from their context and highlights the now (almost) universal character of their usage (> Globalization).

ConCreTeAs in Paysage Tijuana (Tijuana landscape), 2010 , or Construction Mexico santa fe, 2010, a collection of apartment blocks or concrete houses has taken form in the course of trips, the common point being banality and interchangeability.Architecture is also present in the form of the building site, displaying its cranes, its rusty metal rods and an entire in-between world. The building site is in keeping with the poor aesthetic of wastelands, made of the poetry of emptiness and uncertainty.finally, walls, whether stone or concrete, new or worn, surmountable or not, structure images by partitioning space or by closing perspectives. They embody the diversity of frontiers, invisible or, on the contrary, very

much real, persisting or even resurfacing today. They are the flip side of freedom of movement (> Wasteland, Globalization).

ColoUr(> Monochrome, ian Wallace)

DoCUMenTAryin a body of work not lacking in formal development, particularly through spatial representations that are constructed in sequences and the alternation of images and monochromes, the real as truth remains the objective of these photographs. originally documentary in its approach, marked by the thinking of Jean-Pierre rehm on the definition of genre, Chimène Denneulin’s work has evolved towards a visual efficiency that renders the real more striking (> ian Wallace, Monochrome).

hosPiTAlin 2011, a six-month residence in the aftercare unit and long-term care unit of Angers University hospital gave rise to a new series of photographs in and around the building. They are portraits, always anonymous, of patients, visitors or staff, done in a studio set up on site or in the hospital. facing the camera, the models pose, evoking the temporality of waiting and idleness brought about by hospitalization. in response, the photographs taken outside, following the indications of the same people, show us desolate landscapes devoid of human presence (> Portraits, wasteland).

GlobAlizATionWorks produced from regions previously marginal to the world of contemporary art, and approaches that question the human consequences of the globalization of trade, linking the global and the local, characterize globalized art. The images presented here show many places whose cultures we know to be different and yet, with their architecture, their cars, their goods, they become interchangeable (> Africa, Concrete, Palestine, Portraits...).

MonoChroMeDoes the monochrome simply stem from a formal enquiry? Malevich’s suprematist works were interpreted in this sense, as were reinhardt’s camaieu canvases or Klein’s iKb. yet artists today, such as ian Wallace, Ken lum or Walid raad draw attention to the potential overlap between the monochrome and reality. In Chimène Denneulin’s work, the monochrome goes beyond simple formalism, inserting between documentary-style photographs. The beige, grey, red, or solid colour backgrounds that run through the image sequences in the exhibitions or

in the pages of catalogues, isolate the subjects from their context and make them all the more unique. These monochromes highlight the contents, giving them fresh meaning: escaping from the stream of images that we are used to seeing, they become visible.

PATTerns(> Grounds)

PAlesTineThe destination of choice for the photojournalist and the committed artist, Palestine is the subject of news reports and documentaries in which we see wounded, dead and children in the ruins. in the 1970s already, Godard, with the film Ici et ailleurs (Here and Elsewhere), resulting from a long process of fragmented shoots and reflection on how to film history in the making, called for distance in order to better talk about Palestine. “We went about it like a lot of people do, we rolled the camera and turned the sound up too loud”, he stated in self-criticism in relation to the earliest footage taken with the militant group Dziga Vertov.Portrait Ayat, 2009 shows a young student from hebron. isolated from her context and placed against a red background, she looks like many other students living anywhere. Like in Elia Suleiman’s film Divine Intervention, 2002, where the denial of reality sometimes helps to rekindle hope, here, the effacement of the context generates utopia. (> Portraits, Photoshop®, Monochrome)

PhoToshoP®

Forms – figures, architecture, cars (> Robert Bechtle) – are cut out using the Photoshop® tool in an unusual way: while one generally strives to make this operation as discreet as possible, here the photographer cuts roughly, tracing an uneven line around the shape, a fault line that here and there leaves blanks on the new background created or imported from other files. In the current context where, thanks to digital technology, images, unbeknownst to the viewer, can be entirely manufactured and remanufactured by anyone, as emphasized by André Gunthert, Christian Delage and Vincent Guigueno in their book la fabrique des images contemporaines (The Manufacture of Contemporary images), 2007, this elementary gesture stands out as a protest. A gesture rejected by the person at whom this image enhancement software is aimed. An assumed “bad act”, worse, a sabotage of the graphics tool and a subversion of conventional practices, this bad (or indeed good) use of Photoshop® questions the unthought-of implications of the widespread use of image enhancement. beyond the problem of the non-veracity of the images, which has been around since the invention of photography, it is for example the possibilities offered by

the tool (the “hidden gems” to create “stunning images” according to Adobe’s® presentation of the product) that result in an omnipresent stereotyped “creativity”.

PorTrAiTsin the tradition of the portrait of anonymous subjects, from August Sander to Beat Streuli, Chimène Denneulin photographs people encountered during her travels whom she asks to pose for her. But this is just the first stage: then comes the work of extracting the figures from their context. Then the figure is transported to another world, a world of colours that soothes or, conversely, emphasizes the violence that inhabits them (> Photoshop ®, Monochrome, Violence).

GroUnDGround receives special attention and often even occupies a large part of space. sand, soil, asphalt, grass and puddles create abstract patterns that could spread all over. They resonate with the zones of monochrome that insert between figures drawn from the real (>Monochrome).

WAsTelAnDDiscovered at a walking pace, the photographed cities are essentially deserted downtowns or soulless suburbs, with building sites, abandoned plots and poorly maintained streets. This gives rise to landscapes both hard and poetic, which, gathered together, constitute an accurate portrait of today’s world.

ViolenCeCrashes, collisions and harshness: the landscape as well as the portraits reveal a latent violence. it is in the rustiness of the metal, the dryness of the grass, the asphalt scars, skin marked with tattoos or piercings, or even the attitude of the characters who look at us in defiance. In addition, the montage of images among each other is designed as a series of confrontations that accentuate the violence of the content.

iAn WAllACePhotographs of crossroads, pedestrian crossings, punctuated by bands of bright colours evoking what he considers as the culmination of painting – the monochrome – are, among the works of ian Wallace (born 1943), those that best demonstrate the effectiveness of the relationship between colour and photography. The experience of the most common contemporary urban life is framed, enhanced, rediscovered in these works. The Canadian artist invents in this way a new kind of photographic tableau (> Documentary, Monochrome).

Vanessa Morisset, Art Critic for Centre Pompidou,2012

shorT-CirCUiTinG The liMiTs (GrACe)

“The image is not a copy of a thing. It is a complex set of relationships between the visible and the invisible, the visible and language. (…) It is always a shift that takes place in a chain of images, that in turn shifts it.” Jacques Rancière, The Emancipated Spectator, 2008

leT’s Go for A WAlKi began by 1/ abandoning my workshop, which led me to wander.2/ photographing blank walls, a canvas for the mind’s eye.3/ presenting two images in the corner of a wall: a group portrait in a landscape and its counterpart, nearly the same landscape but without the group.

elseWhereThus, the concepts of ‘elsewhere’ and the ‘in-between’ are an integral part of my approach to photography. it is also because adolescence is a blank page – a ‘canvas for the mind’s eye’ – somewhere between games and responsibility, that it attracted my interest. but there also is an emptiness (in the landscapes photographed in Dakar, the ground reaches into the upper part of the image). one can also see a deliberate ‘emptying out’ in the most recent photographs, starting with those taken in san francisco. Additionally, there is a sense of form. in the series of black walls, in the catalogue of contextual objects and other photos one finds a relatively minimal sense of form that is a direct reference to abstract art (painting or volume). elsewhere, in-between, emptiness and shape.

Adolescence? A territory. Urban landscapes? A territory. Cars? A territory. Whether photographic, sociological, political or simply tangible or metaphorical reality, all the subjects i have approached over the years were for me a means of grasping a ‘history’, a ‘Culture’, a ‘school’ (an aesthetic environment) and inscribing it in my catalogue of iconographic vocabulary. i photograph a given object for its formal and cultural value, taking visual cues from photojournalism, advertising, art and fashion photography (another set of photography’s multiple territories, which are often considered disconnected) in order to offer ‘coordinated’ interpretations. by this i mean that these territories can coordinate with each other so long as they are mentally linked by a colour, a particular installation, title or other means.

MoTifsToday, i have at my disposal a certain number of these different motifs (base materials which allow me to control the origin and point of view) which are presented severally, side by side, similarly to an open book. for example, the wheel of a car will be presented next to an androgynous teenage girl, herself next to a bullet-riddled building. between the two photographs is a narrower panel in solid colour.

My project involves presenting sets of volume or sculptural images in which the processing (medium, format, type of print) plays a decisive role in perception. This enables me to compose a heterogeneous, almost chaotic installation containing multiple points of entry, spaces and sensations. The aim of the work is to offer images that approach the status of obJeCTs, and a visual experience that is more unsettling and abstract than narrative.

JUxTAPoseMy intention is to juxtapose images that, on the surface, are unrelated from the “territory” point of view, in order to short-circuit the “series” effect often found in photography, which I do not find satisfying (it is often the opposite: dictatorial and closed-minded). for though i desire to make art, first and foremost I have a yearning for images that precedes all production. This desire for images is driven by a set of longstanding interests that often affirm recent or emerging ones. Forms of art perceived by the eye in life, for example, or (more metaphysical or nietzschean) questions concerning the search for the absolute, or the recurring themes of aggressiveness and tragedy in Western artistic representations. Also of interest to me are the ideas of moving, escape and shifts (cars are objects of “escape”).

AbolishinG The seriesin addition, short-circuiting or abolishing the “series” effect addresses questions about how representations of the world reach us: inevitably in a chaotic, disorderly manner, with hierarchisations which do not conform to our individual perceptions. since individuals are forced to continually carry out “comparative studies” of the images with which they are confronted on a daily basis, I find it fitting to question the knowledge and culture of viewers in order to create links between the proposed images, in other words, to give order to the chaos. Why

not “knowledge through assembly” as suggested by Didi Huberman, because it is a “scientific faculty to perceive the intimate relationships and secrets of things, the connections and analogies” (images malgré tout, 2004). i am particularly fond of intellectual games (which quickly turn to emotions…), such as those proposed by conceptual artists – starting with lawrence Wiener – where a mental image emerges from a visual offering. Also worth mention is sigmar Polke, who has since the 1960s created works in which the formal and the political coexist remarkably. As is ed ruscha, who produces experimental work that is extremely open and reflects a passion for literature and cinema.

This project took hold in a highly syncretic manner within the context of my development as an artist. All my previous work was heterogeneous – graphic design, various forms of media, painting and sometimes action all played important roles. After having explored a number of paths (in terms of meaning) and formal possibilities, this project has emerged as that which, after 10 years of twists and turns, best fuses my interests. As such, it is highly stimulating in terms of the possibilities offered and thus a fundamental component of my work moving forward.

Chimène Denneulin, 2010

insUrGenTesGalery of national Art school, brestPhotographies on papierMultiple sizes 2012

Des palmiers, un jeune homme tatoué, une fille voilée, une vieille Subaru, un container, un mur de béton, une rue boueuse ; de Mexico, Bamako, Pékin à San Francisco, Ramallah ou Hébron, Chimène Denneulin arpente le monde, pour en saisir, par le médium photographique, la globalité, à travers la diversité des stigmates de la mondialisation et des références culturelles communes. Portraits d’adolescents, objets et paysages urbains se confrontent dans le dialogue frontal d’une ville-monde, métisse et universelle. Plus abstraits que métaphoriques, les portraits des adolescents dont l’artiste a fait un sujet de prédilection artistique, deviennent ici les icônes mêmes du monde, tels des « soleils de la conscience »* révélateurs d’identités qui s’échappent du carcan vernaculaire, dans un processus inéluctable qui rapproche les humanités multiples, de façon vertigineuse, les unes vers les autres. Un point de vue potentiellement documentaire qui s’empare d’une plasticité a contrario du réalisme photographique cher aux reportages socio-ethnologiques. Détourages sauvages sous Photoshop, addition graphique de fonds monochromes de couleurs ostensibles accolés aux images ou sur lesquels viennent vivement se détacher les silhouettes, les usages numériques contemporains et les techniques de communication visuelle donnent une dimension plastique hétéroclite et brute qui confère à ses montages photographiques un statut proche de celui de l’objet-livre. Etendues, dépliées, les pages de Chimène Denneulin déploient une matière-monde chaotique, provisoire et inattendue. MAI TRAN, 2011

le mur commence ici, Galerie rDV nantes«The wall start here»Photographies on papermultiple sizes 2011

(...) Quoi de commun entre hébron, bamako, san francisco, ramallah ou Mexico? Un palmier? Une voiture? Un mur ou une simple touche de rouge? Chimène Denneulin confronte les paysages, les portraits (de personne, de voiture) qu’elle réalise un peu partout dans le monde. Au lieu de montrer in extenso ses séries de photos prises en Palestine ou au Mexique comme le ferait un reporter, elle fait le choix de les court-circuiter en les mélangeant pour suggérer des rapprochements inattendus mais toujours pertinents. Comme le répète souvent Godard, rapprocher des images, c’est les faire penser. Opérés en fonction de critères à chaque fois renouvelés, ces rapprochements font surgir la réalité dans ce qu’elle a de plus contemporain. Car ils font écho à la mondialisation et à la manière dont cohabitent la culture globalisée et les cultures vernaculaires. Au jour le jour, comment ces deux types de cultures se marient-ils? les choses sont toujours plus compliquées qu’il n’y paraît de prime abord. (...)

Vanessa Morisset

«opération béton» Concrete operation national Art school, AngersPhotographies on papermultiple sizes 2011

(...) Que ce soit dans ses travaux récents en Palestine (2010), territoire tellement politisé et archi-couvert par les médias, dans quelques séries plus anciennes réalisées en Californie, révélant des paysages et des gens pré-stéréotypés (2007), ou encore dans l’univers des ados fans de marques (2004), ses photos échappent aux pratiques convenues et à la récupération idéologique. elles restent subversives grâce à une opération très simple : des retouches Photoshop volontairement trash et élémentaires. Là où les photographes de presse procèdent avec minutie pour effacer toute trace d’intervention, Chimène Denneulin accentue au contraire ses retouches jusqu’au sabotage de l’outil graphique. Les visages, les bâtiments, les voitures sont par exemple grossièrement détourés puis recollés sur d’autres fonds, paysages, aplats ou dégradés de couleur prêts à l’emploi. Une jeune palestinienne prend alors la place d’une icône Pop, une vieille Subaru défie le spectateur. C’est paradoxalement ainsi qu’ils retrouvent leur aura. (...)

Vanessa Morisset

«bichromes»Diaporama 2010

«Abstractions»10 bâches grand format sur la place Manara, place principale de ramallah 2010

«Grace»Photographies sur papier90x110 2009

Photographies

Paysage Mexico, 201082x100cmphotographie argentique, tirage jet d’encre3 exemplaires + 2 E.A.

Paysage, Tijuana 201080x100cmphotographie argentique tirage jet d’encre3 exemplaires + 2 E.A.

Rue Bamako, 2005120x100cmphotographie argentique, tirage jet d’encre3 exemplaires + 2 E.A.

Rue Mexico, 201082x100cmphotographie argentique tirage jet d’encre3 exemplaires + 2 E.A.

Rue Angers, 201180x100cmphotographie numérique tirage jet d’encre3 exemplaires + 2 E.A.

Rue Bethléem, 200980x100cmphotographie numérique tirage jet d’encre3 exemplaires + 2 E.A.

Confrontation Poitiers, 200885x100cmphotographie argentique, tirage jet d’encre3 exemplaires + 2 E.A.

Rue Mexico, 201082x100cmphotographie argentique, tirage jet d’encre3 exemplaires + 2 E.A.

Portrait Norbert, 201180x100cmphotographie numérique, traitement numérique, tirage jet d’encre3 exemplaires + 2 E.A.

Portrait Hugo, 201080x100cmphotographie argentique, traitement numérique, tirage jet d’encre3 exemplaires + 2 E.A.

Portrait Ayat, 200980x100cmphotographie numérique, traitement numérique, tirage jet d’encre3 exemplaires + 2 E.A.

Portrait Omar, 201080x100cmphotographie numérique, tirage jet d’encre3 exemplaires + 2 E.A.

Portrait Bernard ,201080x100cmphotographie numérique, traitement numérique, tirage jet d’encre3 exemplaires + 2 E.A.

Portrait Marimar ,201080x100cmphotographie numérique, traitement numérique, tirage jet d’encre3 exemplaires + 2 E.A.

Portrait Jeanne, 201180x100cmphotographie numérique, traitement numérique, tirage jet d’encre3 exemplaires + 2 E.A.

Portrait Grace, 200880x100cmphotographie numérique, traitement numérique, tirage jet d’encre3 exemplaires + 2 E.A.

Portrait Chloé, 200880x100cmphotographie numérique, traitement numérique, tirage jet d’encre3 exemplaires + 2 E.A.

Portrait Bruno, 201080x100cmphotographie numérique, traitement numérique, tirage jet d’encre3 exemplaires + 2 E.A.

Véhicule Ramallah, 200980x100cmphotographie numérique tirage jet d’encre3 exemplaires + 2 E.A.

Véhicule Mexico, 201075x100cmphotographie argentique tirage jet d’encre3 exemplaires + 2 E.A.

Véhicule Mexico, 201085x100cmphotographie argentique, traitement numérique, tirage jet d’encre3 exemplaires + 2 E.A.

Véhicule Angers; 201175x100cmphotographie numérique, tirage jet d’encre3 exemplaires + 2 E.A.

Construction Mexico, 201082x100cmphotographie argentique, tirage jet d’encre3 exemplaires + 2 E.A.

Construction Mexico, 201080x100cmphotographie argentique tirage jet d’encre3 exemplaires + 2 E.A.

Construction Angers, 201180x100cmphotographie numérique tirage jet d’encre3 exemplaires + 2 E.A.

Construction Ramallah, 200980x100cmphotographie numérique tirage jet d’encre3 exemplaires + 2 E.A.

Construction Bamako, 2005120x100cmphotographie numérique tirage jet d’encre3 exemplaires + 2 E.A.

Construction Ramallah, 200980x100cmphotographie numérique tirage jet d’encre3 exemplaires + 2 E.A.

Arbre Dakar, 2003120x100cmphotographie argentique tirage jet d’encre3 exemplaires + 2 E.A.

Arbre Ramallah, 200980x100cmphotographie numérique tirage jet d’encre3 exemplaires + 2 E.A.

Container Dakar, 2003120x100cmphotographie argentique, tirage jet d’encre3 exemplaires + 2 E.A.

Container Ramallah, 200975x100cmphotographie numérique, tirage jet d’encre3 exemplaires + 2 E.A.

Mur Angers, 201180x100cmphotographie numérique, tirage jet d’encre3 exemplaires + 2 E.A.

Mur Ramallah, 200980x100cmphotographie numérique, tirage jet d’encre3 exemplaires + 2 E.A.

Mur San Francisco, 200778x100cmphotographie argentique, traitement numérique, tirage jet d’encre3 exemplaires + 2 E.A.

Mur Bamako, 2005120x100cmphotographie argentique, traitement numérique, tirage jet d’encre3 exemplaires + 2 E.A.

Sol Dakar, 2003120x100cmphotographie argentique, tirage jet d’encre3 exemplaires + 2 E.A.

Sol Bamako, 2005120x100cmphotographie argentique, tirage jet d’encre3 exemplaires + 2 E.A.

Sol Ramallah, 200975x100cmphotographie numérique, traitement numérique, tirage jet d’encre3 exemplaires + 2 E.A.

Sol Mexico, 201082x100cmphotographie argentique, tirage jet d’encre3 exemplaires + 2 E.A.

Sol San Francisco, 2007100x100cmphotographie argentique, tirage jet d’encre3 exemplaires + 2 E.A.

Sol Riaillé, 201082x100cmphotographie argentique, tirage jet d’encre3 exemplaires + 2 E.A.

Phares Riaillé, 201080x100cmphotographie numérique, tirage jet d’encre3 exemplaires + 2 E.A.

Phare Poitiers, 200880x100cmphotographie argentique, tirage jet d’encre3 exemplaires + 2 E.A.

Objet Riaillé, 201080x100cmphotographie numérique, tirage jet d’encre3 exemplaires + 2 E.A.

Objet Ramallah, 200980x100cmphotographie numérique, tirage jet d’encre3 exemplaires + 2 E.A.

Travail Mexico, 201080x100cmphotographie argentique, tirage jet d’encre3 exemplaires + 2 E.A.

Travail Angers, 201180x100cmphotographie numérique, tirage jet d’encre3 exemplaires + 2 E.A.

Travail Angers, 201180x100cmphotographie numérique, tirage jet d’encre3 exemplaires + 2 E.A.

Travail Angers, 201180x100cmphotographie numérique, tirage jet d’encre3 exemplaires + 2 E.A.

Portrait Mexico, 201082x100cmphotographie argentique, traitement numérique, tirage jet d’encre3 exemplaires + 2 E.A.

Portrait Ramallah, 200980x100cmphotographie argentique, traitement numérique, tirage jet d’encre3 exemplaires + 2 E.A.

Portrait Poitiers, 200880x100cmphotographie numérique, tirage jet d’encre3 exemplaires + 2 E.A.