I do not remember having seen any of Garcin's work before so it was something of a shock to come across his work at the Arles Festival. As far as I am aware his approach is unique and certainly is set apart by him using himself as the main character in a series of montages that make a statement about his take on life. He describes the individual works as 'small philosophies'. It is well worth visiting his web site at www.gilbert-garcin.com where you can see virtually all of his work. It is impressive.
Although I comment on three of the works in this blog the choice was difficult. Whilst there is a unifying theme (Garcin) throughout his work each is unique in its own way. The first image I wish to say something about is 'When the Wind will come 2007'. It is a simple montage having two elements - a dandelion 'clock' and Garcin. The 'clock' is about three times the size of Garcin with the seed head about one and a half times his size. A seed has fallen to the floor and Garcin is looking at it. The photograph is cleverly lit with the 'clock' brightly lit as is the seed on the floor. Garcin is lit from the side so half is in shadow. It is the lighting that, for me, creates the biggest impact as it draws the viewer's attention to the subject matter. We, the viewer, are left with the task of deciding the point of the picture as the title is enigmatic and we are given few if any clues as to what Garcin is thinking. In many of his images Garcin is actively doing something that seems to have relevance to what we see (the image) and what we are told (the title) but here he is stationary.
My second choice is 'The Decisive Choice 2006'. In this image Garcin is walking carrying a suitcase, head down looking at the road in front of him. The road enters the picture to the bottom right. A couple of paces from him the road divides with one part steeply rising to disappear at the top left hand corner of the image. The other part curves and then dives down with a slight twist leaving the image at the bottom left hand corner. In this image we have two 'no-no's' of composition. Both parts of the road take the viewer's eye out of the image. We cannot argue that they take us into the picture because the figure is walking to the left so that this too should lead our eye out of the image. Yet this does not happen and one has to ask why? I would suggest that this is because we go back to see if there is anything that tells us what the decision made by the figure will be. i.e. which path is he going to follow? We are captured within the image because at the time we see the image the choice has yet to be made. Far from being a compositional error there is an increase in tension because of the unresolved future of what we see - it is brilliant.
My third choice is 'Driven ambition 2003'. In this image the action takes place in the bottom third of the image. We have two human figures. The first is female and who is standing on the first on the left of seven blocks that go across the image the gap between each block increasing as we move to the right. The second figure, Garcin, has jumped from the second block and is about to land on the third block. His position seems precarious and the viewer wonders whether he will land successfully or fail in his ambition at this early stage. Again the tension in the image is created by the unresolved crisis as Garcin teeters on the brink of disaster.
In the first image an air of uncertainty is created by the relative sizes of the main participants. There is uncertainty in the next two but by including unresolved elements Garcin increases the sense of tension for the viewer. Both are very clever use of understated clues within the image and require a level of understanding of these clues from the viewer.
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