JEAN-MICHEL FAUQUET /
ANDRZEI PILICHOWSKI-RANGO
17/01/–01/03/2014
CONRADS present with great pleasure the first solo shows in Germany of Jean-Michel Fauquet and of Andrzej Pilichowski-Ragno at the gallery´s project space.
Jean-Michel Fauquet,born 1950 in Lourdes, lives and works in Paris.
Jean-Michel Fauquet´s oeuvre is a closed cosmos directed by the artist. Self-taught, he created over the last thirty years, a complex work that is situated in the fields of photography, painting and sculpture. During his nightly expeditions he collects cardboard boxes, which are processed in his studio to archaic sculptures. Fauquet staged them like strange fetishes for his b/w-photographs. The narrowness of his studio allows only limited technical aids. He uses simple plates or roll film cameras. The long exposure in low light creates a chiaroscuro, reminiscent of Baroque painting, as well as to the Film Noir. Besides these interieurs occur landscape motifs and staged portraits. The effect of this photographic imagery reinforces Fauquet often by overpainting the silver gelatin prints with thin layers of dark oil paint. In the diffuse light of the images the size and materiality of the objects remain undetermined. Even in his landscapes and portraits specific features in favor of an almost archetypal imagery are eliminated. The artist thus creates its own universe of so much fascination that the viewer can hardly escape. His works are in private and public collections, such as the collection of Francois Pinault and the collection of the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris. The Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris presents a solo show of Jean-Michel Fauquet in march 2014.
In the gallery´s project space CONRADS present black and white photographs by Andrzej Pilichowski-Ragno.
Andrzej Pilichowski-Ragno, 1967 born in Rome, lives and works in Krakow.
He earned a liberal arts degree at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, where he later lectured on literary theory for several years. Pilichowski- Ragno studied photography with Prof. Zbigniew ?agocki (EFIAP) at the Academy of Fine Art in Krakow. For 20 years he has been working as a photographer and an active member of ZPAF (Zwi?zek Polskich Artystów Fotografików – the prestigious association of Polish fine art photographers created in 1947). Today he is a professor of photography at Cracow University of Technology. It is not Andrzej Pilichowski-Ragno intention to photograph certain projects or to work on specific series. The city landscape appears the most important in the artist’s oeuvre. But the place, the city is not the essential. His photography is more general. He focuses on discovering of what is in common, timeless and beyond the geographic place.
