Achetez de l'acier, 2006
Fotografía sobre aluminio. Ed.1/3 160 x 232 cm
Cortesía: Galerie Georges-Philippe & Nathalie Vallois, París
Achetez de l’acier [Buy Steel] is the title of a large-format photograph in the classic tradition of German photography. The image is that of an American automobile from the 1970s, visibly decrepit, seen in profile. It is parked in front of a wooden house on a side street in some small industrial town typical of the East coast of the United States; the weather is dark and wet. The image is reminiscent of the atmospheres created by American realistic photographs and paintings from the 1930s (in fact, reminiscent of most of my images).Running across its entire side, the car bears the inscription: “help to preserve one of the world’s most beautiful landscapes.”There is a false paradox between the issue of preserving the landscape (which we often hear in connection with our ancient heritage or nature “in the wild”) and that of the disappearance of industrial landscapes. But there is also the idea of a solution: Buy Steel, so we can have smoking factories, so we can have dramatic landscapes! This solution is in opposition with the one of our time, which tries to convert old factories into cultural centres.
