Denis Drazacq
Paris, France
Artist’s Statement
Biography
French. Born in 1961 in Paris. Lives in Paris
Graduate of the Ecole Nationale Supérieurs des Arts Décoratifs, Paris
Awards
2007 World Press, first prize Art and Entertainment, Stories for La Chute
2000 Prize Altadis for Ensemble
General statement on his work
Denis Darzacq photographs bodies and questions the place of the individual in society, his frustrations and the freedom, which is necessary to know how to protect. His artistic research, on the edge of the sociological documentary and the contemporary stage setting, feeds itself with the numerous work undertaken for the press. His style, marked by the painting’s history, oscillates between rigour and exuberance.
La Chute, 2006
Inspired by a report for the press, La Chute makes the link between photojournalism and contemporary art. It stages - without special effect - in perfectly mastered compositions, dancers seized in an instant with a jump. The series constitutes a political metaphor of the situation of current youth. Crowned by the World Press Photo in 2007, La Chute is in the collections of the Georges Pompidou Center and the Estate City of Immigration History
Hyper, 2007-2008
The series Hyper develops La Chute. Granting an unprecedented place to color, it sets bodies in levitation against the space saturated by supermarkets. The jump appears as a suspension, a free gesture, an act of resistance in front of the consumer society.
Artist’s Links
website: http://www.denis-darzacq.com
gallery links: www.laurencemillergallery.com
Artist’s Recent Reviews
DENIS DARZACQ
Suspended in midair, the young subjects of this French photographer’s big color pictures appear to be levitating in the otherwise unpopulated aisles of supermarkets. Surrounded by shelves of colorful products, bathed in chilly florescent light, they’re in an ecstatic, zero-gravity bubble, and you can’t help but envy them. As with Darzacq’s previous photographs of parkour daredevils floating high above the sidewalk, there’s no Photoshop manipulation involved in these pictures of street dancers in action. The work is slick and flawlessly controlled but exhilarating—seeing it is like witnessing the invention of some new indoor sport. The gallery contextualizes it with a selection of equally kinetic photographs of bodies in motion by Kertesz, Siskind, Levitt, Lartigue, and others. Through March 27. (Laurence Miller, 20 W. 57th St. 212-397-3930.)