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Pierre Gonnord »

Asian Portraits // Retratos asiáticos

Exhibition: 20 Jan – 16 Apr 2006

Casa Asia

Av. Diagonal 373
08008 Barcelona

+34 (0)93-2387337


www.casaasia.es

Tue-Sat 10-20 . Sun 10-14

Casa Asia will open an exhibition on Pierre Gonnord, with a selection of 27 photographies dedicated to Asian models, focused on exclusion and marginality against the mainstream. The series of portraits starts in 2001 and finishes in 2005 with "Sebastian", an Indian migrant in Paris. The series starts in 2001 in New York, except "Bright Orange" from 1999, and reaches its peak level in Japan, during Gonnord's stay in 2003, where the major portraits, shown in Casa Asia, were shot. This series might not be considered a closed series of photographies, because Gonnord will continue portraying Asian models, not only in Asia, but also in cities which have grown from big Diasporas, induced by migration movements from Eastern countries to Western countries. Pierre Gonnord from his beginnings has been attracted by the strength of expression that can be detected in the faces of certain people, sometimes excluded, whose existence is kept in the look of the model used by the photographer, who helps us find ourselves when the truth of human beings is hinted at. Asian Portraits make up a series that adds to the work the artist regularly develops turning photography into a kind of writing. Asian Portraits, the name of this collection, constitutes a compact group of images, whose individuality makes them inimitable. The generated impact comes from the immobility of the model and from the projection of the subject, which transforms it into a symbolic figure. His Asian and non Asian portraits show a treatment of the figure whose background is the painting. The painting tradition of the portrait is an important influence in Gonnord's work and is part of the reproduction technique from visual artists, who try to amplify the expression marks. His portraits are usually a complete bust or half a bust, with some exceptions, where the complete body appears in an individual or in a group portrait. These portraits are akin to literary and philosophical portraits, even if the subjects of the portraits are real people, whose exclusion from the mainstream evokes the Foucaultian discourse and, at the same time, transports the subject to the view into a dimension of the existence, which takes us to the origin of the being and not being. The word that indicates the nationality of the models does not vary the essence and the technique used by Gonnord, but it helps us to identify these intriguing portraits of anonymous people that Gonnord finds around the world. In Gonnord's portraits we find the heritage of the Western history of painting from the Renaissance and Baroque until now and, at the same time, it incorporates the photographic technique and proceeds to achieve significance. The figures that the artist shows correspond to pedestrians he finds in the streets or in any public space during his urban excursions. The election of the model is part of the process in which he executes a project: each portrait is a project in itself. Gonnord has the capacity to isolate every figure, dedicating a special attention, so that every portrait can reveal its own expression. Pierre Gonnord's working sessions are authentic stage settings, which include his studio settings as well as the settings on real environments.