Galerie Pixi - Marie-Victoire Poliakoff

Images

Texts

Académie des Beaux-Arts

Claudine Doury

Beaux Arts de Paris

Group show

Ecole nationale supérieure d'architecture - Paris Malaquais

Nicolas Giraud, Bertrand Stofleth

Frac Normandie Rouen Hors les Murs - Rubis Mécénat

Geert Goiris

Maison Auguste Comte

David Fathi

Musée national Eugène-Delacroix

Today. Eugène Delacroix, Daniel Blaufuks

Musée de Minéralogie MINES ParisTech

Marie Sommer

Musée Rodin

Mac Adams, Patrick Hourcade

Atelier Néerlandais

Group show

Centre Culturel Irlandais

Group show

Centre tchèque de Paris

Josef Sudek

Institut culturel italien

Gianni Berengo Gardin

Maison de l'Amérique latine

Jeanne Mandello, Hildegard Rosenthal, Grete Stern

Espace des femmes - Antoinette Fouque

Lola Hakimian

FIDAL Photo Hors les Murs

Philipe Grollier

Galerie Berthet-Aittouarès

Éric Antoine

Galerie du Crous

Pablo Jomaron & Red Lebanese

Galerie Folia

Peter Puklus

Galerie Gimpel & Müller

Kai-Chun Chang, Stephen Dean, Anne Deleporte

Galerie La Forest Divonne

Elsa Parra & Johanna Benaïnous

Galerie Meyer Oceanic & Eskimo Art

Edward Wallowitch

Galerie PhotoSaintGermain

Thomas Boivin

Galerie Pixi - Marie-Victoire Poliakoff

Alexis Poliakoff

Galerie Georges-Philippe & Nathalie Vallois

Mind's Eye - Galerie Adrian Bondy

N°	Location	Artist	Type	District
1	Académie des Beaux-Arts	Claudine Doury	Institution	75006
2	Beaux Arts de Paris	Group show	Institution	75006
3	Ecole nationale supérieure d'architecture - Paris Malaquais	Nicolas Giraud, Bertrand Stofleth	Autre	75006
4	Frac Normandie Rouen Hors les Murs - Rubis Mécénat	Geert Goiris	Galerie	75006
5	Maison Auguste Comte	David Fathi	Institution	75006
6	Musée national Eugène-Delacroix	Today. Eugène Delacroix, Daniel Blaufuks	Institution	75006
7	Musée de Minéralogie MINES ParisTech	Marie Sommer	Institution	75006
8	Musée Rodin	Mac Adams, Patrick Hourcade	Institution	75007
9	Atelier Néerlandais	Group show	Centre Culturel	75007
10	Centre Culturel Irlandais	Group show	Centre Culturel	75005
11	Centre tchèque de Paris	Josef Sudek	Centre Culturel	75006
12	Institut culturel italien	Gianni Berengo Gardin	Centre Culturel	75007
13	Maison de l'Amérique latine	Jeanne Mandello, Hildegard Rosenthal, Grete Stern	Centre Culturel	75007
14	Espace des femmes - Antoinette Fouque	Lola Hakimian	Galerie	75006
15	FIDAL Photo Hors les Murs	Philipe Grollier	Galerie	75006
16	Galerie Berthet-Aittouarès	Éric Antoine	Galerie	75006
17	Galerie du Crous	Pablo Jomaron & Red Lebanese	Galerie	75006
18	Galerie Folia	Peter Puklus	Galerie	75006
19	Galerie Gimpel & Müller	Corinne Day	Galerie	75006
20	Galerie Gradiva	Stéphanie Solinas	Galerie	75006
21	Galerie l'inlassable	Kai-Chun Chang, Stephen Dean, Anne Deleporte	Galerie	75006
22	Galerie La Forest Divonne	Elsa Parra & Johanna Benaïnous	Galerie	75006
23	Galerie Le Minotaure	Nina Mushinsky	Galerie	75006
24	Galerie Madé	Alan Eglinton	Galerie	75006
25	Galerie Mandarine	Leon Levinstein	Galerie	75006
26	Galerie Meyer Oceanic & Eskimo Art	Edward Wallowitch	Galerie	75006
27	Galerie PhotoSaintGermain	Thomas Boivin	Galerie	75006
28	Galerie Pixi - Marie-Victoire Poliakoff	Alexis Poliakoff	Galerie	75006
29	Galerie Georges-Philippe & Nathalie Vallois	Alain Bublex	Institution	75006
30	Galerie Dina Vierny	Nina Mushinsky	Galerie	75006
31	IMA	Group show	Galerie	75006
32	Jousse Entreprise	Kishin Shinoyama	Galerie	75006
33	Mind's Eye - Galerie Adrian Bondy	Carlos Barrantes	Galerie	75005
34	Le Plac'Art Photo	Tamiko Nishimura	Librairie	75006
35	Librairie des Alpes	Bertrand Trichet	Librairie	75006
36	Deyrolle	Amandine Freyd	Autre	75007
37	Polycopies	—	Autre	75007
38	Photobook Week	—	Librairie

Galerie Pixi - Marie-Victoire Poliakoff

95 rue de Seine 75006
01 43 25 10 12
Tuesday — Saturday 2.30 - 7 pm
galeriepiximarievictoirepoliakoff.com

Alexis Poliakoff

The photographs by Alexis Poliakoff presented here are not what one would ordinarily call “snapshots”, or reportage: they immediately show something organized or “set up” according to certain of the photographer’s directions (Alexis Poliakoff was assistant to film directors Claude Chabrol and Jean-Luc Godard). This should be sufficient reminder that no photograph is taken straight from “reality” and to take aim through a camera lens is already to impose an order or begin to make sense of what will be fixed on the film. No photograph is taken without intention, without a project, even vague. This is why photography, when it distances itself from it’s “middle-brow” function, as analyzed by Pierre Bourdieu, that is, a way of holding onto conventional memories of family trips or reunions, can only restitute aspects of “reality” that by way of selection imply a certain value. (Even if the aspect of memory or feelings is present in Alexis Poliakoff’s portraits of loved ones or self-portraits.) This principal has a double action when the photographer asks his subjects to become “actors”: to pose in this or that way, to make certain gestures, etc. The humdrum of daily life then gives way to an interaction somewhere between the photographer’s request and how the subject interprets it. He or she can take the initiative of only partially fulfilling the request, even if the final pose eventually brings something serendipitous and satisfactory.

At the end of this dialectic or one-upmanship, what “once was” is no longer the “reality” of the immediate. It’s the result of an exchange between more or less explicit desires, of a compromise defining a doubly fictive scene: product of a verbal dialogue and a dialogue of the senses and since it’s static, it initiates a virtual story that resolutely asks the viewer to imagine what came before and what could happen next.

The clothes and certain details of the sets indicate that these photographs were taken a few dozen years ago, making themof triple interest to their author: not only sentimental/autobiographical and documentary, but also aesthetic, because it’s clear they follow rules of composition. This is also the case in the series of cropped, square format photographs that because of the way they are created, deserve additional examination.

This group was created from photographs initially part of a parody of a photo novella - of which the episodes were privately distributed in 1975-76. These photographs, part of a story like those described above, implied the possibility of a before and after; they were also “set-up”, insofar as we can surmise by examining the “over-acted” scene in which a character has his hand on his forehead, while a corpse in a far from realistic pose, lies at his feet. Cropping these shots to keep only a close-up or fragment pulls them out of the narrative flux. (It is, to say the least, difficult to imagine a story that can bring them together disputing the autonomy of each one.) Through cropping, an image becomes a portrait (in its entirety or in parts), a nod to film buffs, an allusion (more or less erotic) or an enigmatic scene (who is waving a gun? Does this woman look behind her because she’s worried, or just curious?) It’s also or above all reworking the formal play of the compositions now made possible : emphasizing the diagonals and the oblique, doubling up ellipses, more decisive opposition of blacks and whites. The cropped images, even if they preserve an emotional resonance for their maker, once the characters and objects are transformed into signs without meaning, underline the effectiveness of the modifications and fully defend a category of work that refuses all direct rapport with a first given. From one image to another, the recurrence of an object or a person evokes more a combining of elements than the reality of a serious referent: all hors-champ (temporal – before and after – and spatial – situation or context) is in the process of being erased for the benefit of what is now presented within the frame. The photographic object affirms its relative independence from what is photographed, and participates in the creation of a singular universe. This universe as expected, is first and foremost that of Alexis Poliakoff, but it is also a proposition shared with the viewers.

Gérard Durozoi

Galerie Pixi - Marie-Victoire Poliakoff
Founded in 1990 by Marie Victoire Poliakoff, Pixi Gallery shows the works of contemporary artists and houses Serge Pol.

Click here to explore this show on Artsy.