The building series

 

When you look at a photograph you have the fact, the reality of the image before you.  In an instant, though, this image begins to release a flood of references.  A building, which is objectively the remains or evidence of individual and collective history, transforms itself into something more, the trace of a lived experience which allows the viewer to unfold meaning.  Moving to Belleville in Paris, in September 1988, I found myself drawn to photographing the remains of the ordinary. Commonplace structures neither noteworthy nor original.  Buildings that serve simply as home or shelter and, if valued at all, then in the sentimental or nostalgic realm of memory, traces of past experience.   With these buildings I try to convey a monumentality of form, strong and stoic, buildings which transmit a certain grace, a fragile spirituality, wedding form and content, evidence and experience.

 

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