Lise Sarfati has lived and worked in the United States since 2003. She has realized six important series of photographs there. They have been followed by exhibitions and publications. Each of her works makes clear the identity of an approach focused on the intensity of the rapport established with the person photographed, and of that person with the context. A vision in which the individual is environment, a map outlining a perilous cultural geography. The richness of perception is constructed without effects. The compositions are flawless in the simplicity and unity of the image – the style tends to be elementary and clean, avoiding all qualifications, but the traits of each thing and each person trace a hundred thousand folds. The dimension of the interplay of postures is that of a solemn immaturity: the scenery formed by the people and places is the silent crumpling of a dream in which each risks his or her skin. A feminine seduction tinged with fateful coincidences; the beauty of the adolescents looks like a magic spell. Their solitude and strangeness in the world turn the image into an echo chamber inhabited by the photographer, her subject and the viewer.
The earlier period of a photographic work carried out in Russia (continuously from 1989 to 1999) confirms the tendency of this research. She identifies a very precise and endless psychological spectrum. The projections, the ambitions associated with the immense space, the way in which they compose these figures, play an essential role: the supporting roles are incandescent. A determinism of the heroic, inevitably tragic figure, as if not even we really have another choice.
Oh Man is a series of seventeen large-format photographs, fifteen in color and two in black and white, created in Los Angeles from 2012 to 2013. Like Lise Sarfati’s previous series The New Life (2003), She (2009), and On Hollywood (2010), Oh Man is also set in the urban landscape. In this new work, Sarfati rejects the romantic picturesque. She continues to pursue a body of work which possesses a certain interior complexity and can neither be narrowed down to a singular or global perspective nor be perceived as an object.
Sarfati quotes Baudelaire regarding the series: “in certain almost supernatural states of the soul, the profundity of life reveals itself entirely in the spectacle, however ordinary it may be, before one's eyes. It becomes its Symbol.” She invests the city in a personal and metaphoric way. She rethinks what already exists. A primal vitality, visceral, unrestrainable, arising from rootlessness―men walking and the radical indifference of their bodies―occupies the empty heart of Los Angeles. She creates an image that is always engaged in a discourse with the viewer, an image in which we can project ourselves yet also feel free. The whole series is bathed in a solar light. This luminous point of view acts as an illumination on the image as if to light our vision. Sarfati worked very precisely on the choice of this intense solar light: “I worked on the distance to create an ambiguous link in the relationship between the man and the landscape. My images are large format but through their equilibrium allow the viewer total freedom to engage with the landscape or the human figure.”
The figures in the photographs, characters like those she defined in her series The New Life, She and On Hollywood, are ghostly here. Oh Man creates an uncanny feeling: the men are both anonymous and somehow familiar. They are filmed by surveillance cameras and become a detail of the virtual landscape. What J.G. Ballard, one of Lise Sarfati's references, concerning computerized surveillance systems calls: "an Orwellian nightmare come true, but disguised as a public service."
Oh Man gives us the feeling that we could be downtown in any US megalopolis. The American urban landscape in Sarfati's photographs scrolls along, the warehouses like a long list of signs without affect: United States Post Office, NAB Sound, Toys, Clothing, Handbag, Cosmetics.
Throughout her different series, Sarfati never ceases to interrogate herself on the void and the relationship between the man and the outside world. InOh Man we are swayed by the ambiguous sensation of the landscape, between the attraction to the void and the enjoyment of the space crossed by the walking man.
A family album preserves only carefully selected photographs. Out of an entire life, it stores only handpicked moments, privileging special occasions, happy ones usually, and consigning the rest to oblivion: happy faces, relaxed moments, places of leisure rather than work. It tends to underline a group’s social links and affective relations, to highlight an identity, a communal spirit, a shared life and destiny. The portrait of the couple or group, with all its attendant conventions, is one of its inescapable figures.
The family album tries to register the evolution of a particular human community, to write its story and scan the passage of time with each succeeding page. None of this figures in She: instead of a chronology, time is stopped, it appears to stammer and bite its own tail. There is no group photo or desire to stage a collective destiny, but only isolated models and individuals who do not seem to communicate amongst themselves, or only barely; no happy moments or picturesque places, only indifferent moments in ordinary places; no strong gesture, none of the conventional poses, and no complicity with the photographer.
The models pose, but reservedly, more often than not without looking into the camera. And even when we do see their faces, we don’t really seem to see them. They are here, but they are always also there, elsewhere. When we close the book and think a bit about it, we cannot but see She as the anti-family album par excellence.
By Lise Sarfati, Azzedine Alaia, Rick Owens, Carla Sozzani
Publisher : Publisher : Magnum Photos
2009 | 216 pages
This edition of Fashion Magazine is devoted solely to the work of French photographer Lise Sarfati. In her portraiture, Sarfati dramatizes the intensities of fashionably clad adolescence in the insolently sensual creatures she encounters on the roads of America.
Couching their lightly worn street elegance in moody sobriety, Sarfati presses pause on the activities in which her subjects are engaged and extracts their quintessential sensuality, to produce a type of photography that partakes of both fashion and portraiture idioms without quite belonging to either. Redolent in this respect of Alain Resnais' Last Year at Marienbad, in which the camera deliberately and continually "overgrooms" the emotional drama, Sarfati's work is likewise utterly seductive and compelling.
A series of 50 photographs by French photographer Lise Sarfati. The photographs were taken in cities like Austin, Asheville, Portland, Berkeley, Oakland,Los Angeles, New Orleans and some small towns in Georgia. In each of these portraits, Lise Sarfati dramatizes the complexity of adolescent identity; within unfamiliar territory - both emotionally and physically - where the simplest of feelings become exalted and everything is lived with an intensity that adults will never again be able to feel.
Steff Gruber, is a renowned Swiss photographer and filmmaker whose career spans decades of impactful storytelling. Having started as a press photographer for Keystone Press, Gruber was one of the pioneers of the docudrama genre, making his mark with the internationally acclaimed documentary LOCATION AFRICA. This film, which followed the intense dynamic between Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski during the making of COBRA VERDE, earned him international recognition and set the tone for his distinct filmmaking style.
Gruber's passion for human interest stories has taken him to various countries, where he has documented diverse subjects through his compelling photo stories, often returning multiple times to deepen his understanding of the people and places he captures. His work is celebrated for its striking visual language and his bold approach to narrative, which continues to push boundaries in both photography and film.
We asked him a few questions about his life and work.
Eric Kunsman is a renowned photographer and educator whose work explores the intersection of history, culture, and social commentary. Known for his thought-provoking series and meticulous attention to detail, Kunsman captures powerful narratives that challenge conventional perspectives. In this interview, we delve into his creative process, inspirations, and the stories behind his most compelling projects
Laurie Victor Kay is a versatile, multi-disciplinary artist whose practice seamlessly merges photography, painting, installation, and digital media. Her work explores themes of constructed imagination, idealization, and the surreal, creating thought-provoking visual narratives that challenge traditional boundaries between mediums. We asked her a few questions about her background and work.
Nanda Hagenaars approaches photography with a poetic and emotionally rich sensibility, creating images that reflect her intuitive connection to the world. Fascinated by the relationship between time and timelessness, she often works in black and white, a medium that aligns with her creative vision. We discovered her beautiful work through her submission to AAP Magazine Portrait, and we were captivated by her series Perspective. We asked her a few questions about her life and work.
Lisa McCord is a fine art and documentary photographer whose work deeply reflects her roots in the Arkansas Delta. Known for her evocative explorations of storytelling, memory, and time, McCord draws inspiration from her family’s cotton farm in her series Rotan Switch, which won a solo exhibition and has now been published as a book by Kehrer Verlag. We asked her a few questions about her life and wor
French photographer Laurent Baheux, follows the tradition of humanist photographers by capturing black-and-white images of nature and wildlife. His subjects are not confined to cages or enclosures; they are free individuals, captured in the moment, displaying the full strength of their freedom, the beauty of their personalities, and the tenderness of their communal lives. Celebrated for their aesthetic power and authenticity, Laurent's black-and-white photographs have been featured in books, publications, exhibitions, and conferences, and are displayed in galleries both in France and internationally.
Jon Enoch is a London-based freelance photographer, who works with celebrities, sports people, CEOs, as well as advertising agencies and brands. Jon regularly creates his own personal work, which have won numerous awards over the years. Jon’s recent project ‘The Candymen of Mumbai’ has won a Portrait of Humanity award and was the overall winner of the Pink Lady Food Photographer of the year 2023. His previous 2019 project called ‘Bikes of Hanoi’ also picked up multiple awards including the Paris Photo Prize - Gold in 2019, Portrait of Humanity Award 2020 and was the Smithsonian Grand Prize Winner in 2020. He was also shortlisted for the Sony World Photography Awards in 2020 and nominated for the Lens Culture Portrait Prize 2020. We asked him a few questions about his project 'Reflections'
George Byrne is an acclaimed Australian photographer known for his striking use of color and composition. Byrne's work often captures urban landscapes with a minimalist and abstract aesthetic, transforming ordinary cityscapes into vivid, painterly images. His distinctive style highlights the beauty in everyday scenes, emphasizing geometry, light, and shadow to create visually captivating pieces. Byrne has gained international recognition for his unique approach to photography, blending elements of fine art and documentary to offer a fresh perspective on the urban environment.
Cole is best known for her underwater photography, but her other studio practice during the cold months in Toronto is an ongoing series of wet collodion photographs. This heavily analog process from the 19th Century is a years-long endeavor of revitalization and experimentation, offering modern day viewers an understanding of what it took to develop photographs in the early days of its invention.
Cole has added her own unique take on the process by adding a layer of color in contrast to the usual sepia tones associated with the genre. The resulting wet plate photographs are tactile and dimensional dances between light and shadow, past and present, depicting women in timeless dreamscapes. We asked her a few questions about this specific project
