vincent fournier, solo show brasília, modernist utopias...capital coincides with the beginning of...

Catalogue

Vincent Fournier, solo show

Brasília, Modernist Utopias

at Atelier Jespers Avenue du Prince Héritier 149, B-1200 Brussels

14.11.2019 - 12.01.2020

Vernissage 16.11.2019, 2-10pm

Preview days 14-15.11.2019, 1- 5pm

Finissage Weekend, 10-11.01.2020 - 1-5pm, Sunday Brunch on 12.01.2020 - 12-4pm in the presence of the Artist

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Vincent Fournier

Vincent Fournier is a French artist who explores significant mythologies of the future: space exploration, utopian architecture, artificial intelligence, living transformation… After being awarded a diploma in both sociology and visual arts, he studies at the National School of Photography in Arles and obtains his diploma in 1997. His works can be found in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET) in New York, the Centre Pompidou Paris, the LVMH contemporary Art collection, the Dragonfly Collection in Massignac, the Museum of Fine Arts of Mâcon, Fondation Bullukian in Lyon, the ArtScience Museum in Dublin or the Baccarat Hotel Collection in New-York, among others.

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Brasília, a Time Capsule by Vincent Fournier

My work on the city of Brasilia comes from a mixture of fascination and nostalgia for the stories and representations of the Future. Indeed, the city and capital of Brazil designed by Oscar Niemeyer, and which was built in 4 years in the middle of a desert, embodies the vision of the future of in the 1960s. The “pilot plan”, conceived in 1957 by the planner Lucio Costa, coincided with the beginning of the space age and the first artificial satellite of Earth: Sputnik. This was the golden age of the space age, and the city of Brasilia, with its air of flying saucer-like architecture that seemed to have landed in the middle of nowhere, shows the nostalgia and the dream of a future frozen in time. The case is unique in its size and scope, an entire city, and by its state of conservation, the pilot plan of the city has remained unchanged because of its UNESCO World Heritage designation. Brasilia, a fossilised modernist temple in a utopian future, asserts itself as a time capsule. I used the city as a backdrop for this series of work, one in which its own inhabitants were part of the staging. During my travels I kept coming back to the stories of Jorge Luis Borges and the strange empire whose map covers the city; (Fictions, 1946), by Dino Buzzatti and the idea of time on the run (The Desert of the Tartars, 1940), or the movie, “The Truman Show”, by Peter Weir (1988) whose hero lives in an illusion. Finally, we must also mention the breath-taking and crazy beauty of the city of Brasilia where absolutely everything is composed with the same writing: linear, precise, minimal, fluid, radical, aerial, monumental, musical …

Brasília, Freeze Frame of a Future Past

Interview of Vincent Fournier by Christian Larsen in TL Mag 31, 2019, Pro Materia

In this interview with Christian Larsen, Deputy Curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, artist photographer Vincent Fournier speaks about the futuristic vision of the Brazilian capital: Brasília.

Christian Larsen: How was your interest in Brasília born? Was it part of a broader project to photograph utopian cities, or were you interested in the Brazilian capital itself ?

Vincent Fournier: Brasília is a unique city. It is beautiful and fascinating how the entire city was conceived and created with the same aesthetic, the same coherence. What rigor and what madness! It is also a very special case because in just four years, the architect Oscar Niemeyer and the urban planner Lucio Costa have literally birthed this city in the middle of the desert. It’s a capital oasis, an island like Thomas More’s Utopia book. My interest in Brasilia also comes from my passion for stories and representations that question the future. All my projects, space exploration, humanoid robots, the transformation of living by technology or even utopian architecture show the future in a historical perspective. I went to Brasília with this idea in mind. Indeed, the genesis of the Brazilian capital coincides with the beginning of the space age and the aesthetics of the city is largely inspired. Some buildings look like real flying saucers and the entire city can be seen as a huge spaceship. Discovering the very linear aspect of Brasilia, where, as Lucio Costa wrote, «the sky is the sea of the city,» I decided to take only horizontal images. The tall buildings on stilts gave me the impression that it islike a city that can stand. It is therefore a very cinematographic framing that I adopted, as if I shot a long shot sequence.

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About the exhibition

Spazio Nobile presents Brasília, Modernist Utopias by French photographer at Atelier Jespers in the framework of Brussels Photo Festival.

10 photographs have been carefully selected by Vincent Fournier and Spazio Nobile which works in dialogue with the Modernist interior architecture of Atelier Jespers founded and run by Jean-François Declercq.

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Christian Larsen: I had the same impression as you: that of a vast horizontal landscape. Its buildings, its proportions, everything seems to highlight the horizon, like a vanishing point. Your choice of a horizontal format therefore seemed very wise. I imagine that you went first to discover the buildings and their spaces. Your selection suggests that you have not encountered any surprises; did you ever manage to enter a building and be struck by a moment of fleeting beauty that you had never seen in photography? We know, for example, the Itamaraty spiral staircase, but Athos Bulcão’s lattice is rarely seen, which forms a screen / spatial and visual barrier at its summit. What do you think?

Vincent Fournier: Your vision of a city whose architecture highlights a vanishing point is very interesting. From this point of view, Brasília is hypnotic because the eye is always attracted by the horizon. It is both an experience of the body and thought. Indeed, the body is soothed because when we look at the line of the horizon, our optic nerve is at rest, but this distant gaze also invites us to think about the future. In this respect, the future word in Latin is formulated as «coming». This is what happens, what will come: ad venturus.

Christian Larsen: At the sight of some photographs one feels both an overwhelming feeling of emptiness and the luxury of practically having the entire city for oneself. This type of space often gives me an impression of loneliness.

Vincent Fournier: It is true; in the architecture of Brasilia the void is part of the general plan. It is a continuous dialogue between full and empty. In fact, the space of the city is so rationalised that even the empty places are integrated as so many units in the large plot of the overall plan. Everything rests on a very geometric and abstract conception of space, as if the mathematical universe absorbed the physical universe. It’s a very strange feeling.There is indeed the feeling of being alone in a large setting that reminds me of the news of Jorge Luis Borges «Fictions» where «a map of the Empire had the format of the Empire and coincided with him, point by point «. This impression of isolation contradicts the original project.

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Instead of bringing the people together in a shared space, as Oscar Niemeyer wanted, the city separated them and moved away from each other. This contradiction is found in Thomas More’s Utopia Island, whose perfection is largely based on the standardization of all its elements, at once geographical, architectural and human. In Utopia Island there is no diversity, the inhabitants all live the same existence, work the same number of hours and live in the same houses.

Christian Larsen: Everything is rationally subdivided into sectors, which separate the population rather than integrate it into its multiple activities. The shopping centres are thus isolated from residential areas, or superquadras, themselves away from administrative and government buildings. This type of organisation seemed to me very close to modernist thought, but far removed from socialism, to which Oscar Niemeyer nevertheless adhered. It also contrasts with Jane Jacobs’ judicious observations of street animation, where different commercial, social, professional and recreational activities coexist at any time of the day or night. The wealth of a city lies in the plurality of people and activities that occupy the same space at the same time. The subdivision of all these functions and their partitioning into sectors thus gives the urban experience a strangely hollow and military tone. One feels easily alone in a city whose long horizontal stretches set the proportions. Very surreal, Brasília does not remind me less Los Angeles. Costa and Niemeyer considered that the city centre would be based on a motorized lifestyle: the distances are calculated for cars and no one moves on foot. But these photographs seem to be more interested in architecture and spatial planning than in urban planning. Did you ask these lonely characters to pose for you, or were they just there at that moment? The photograph of the National Theatre gives the impression that you asked this man to go up there for you. Did you think that these solitary spaces needed to be animated by one or more characters?

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These characters were there and I asked them if they agreed to let themselves be led and played a role. My goal was to create situations with narrative and aesthetic intent. For example, the character of the National Theatre is a contemporary dancer who was walking in the area. I invited him to improvise movements echoing the shape of the building. The idea was to create a dialogue, a tension between a static, heavy and massive architecture and a moving silhouette.

Christian Larsen: The photographs you took and the feeling of walking alone through these spaces are very abstract. The sense of rhythm, the materials and the spaces are like geometric abstractions, sometimes disintegrated, sometimes ordered, but always spacious. It is an interesting challenge for a photographer to capture them, and to do it in beauty. But your work is not content to equal the best geometric abstraction or the best architectural photography: it is the presence or absence of humans that gives depth or confers poetry to your shots. I’m intrigued by the spaces that provide the vague sensation a recent or imminent event, such as the lobby of the Brasília Palace Hotel, where a party has just ended, or the Itamaraty blue staircase, which an important official could at any time borrow.

Vincent Fournier: That’s right. The image of Brasília Palace Hotel is entirely staged. I bought these balloons and everything, as if a party had just ended there with the idea of a happy melancholy.

Christian Larsen: I also enjoyed Brasília, which gives a fascinating glimpse of a past. Maybe someday, our current city design will also become obsolete. Do you think this is a success or that some aspects of the city have not lived up to the utopian aspirations?

Vincent Fournier: The utopian future of Brasilia runs up against the very principle of life and the notion of the individual. In fact, Brasília is based on the aspiration to transform life into a perfect equation, a global language, a unique vision, but this desire always comes up against reality.

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Take the example of the superquadras, where people were supposed to live in these autonomous environments but they did not want to confine themselves to it, preferring diversity. The superquadras did not work out as planned, but are a wonderful dream that I deeply respect. Utopias are necessary to challenge habits, to make assumptions, to propose other models and to upset the norms.

Christian Larsen: The city is very interesting in terms of aesthetics. It has the feeling of modern palaces, that take cues from ancient Roman architecture, reduced and multiplied on a large scale. In these vast empty spaces, especially the large fields of grass on the Monumental axis, one has the impression that the city could at a given moment contain the population of Brazil if it were necessary. There is this idea of space and infinite horizon. But it’s a contradiction. Indeed, the city was not designed to accommodate the entire population of Brazil. The plan provided for 500,000 civil servants. It’s also why the city is so strange. Government employees were supposed to live in the main central plane but city planners did not expect waves of immigration to arrive. The satellite cities have therefore grown to welcome all the other citizens who came to make a living. Now the city has more than 2.5 million inhabitants. This is much more than the planners had expected.

Vincent Fournier: Planners did not expect workers to stay in the satellite city of Brasilia once the work was done. To return to this feeling of strangeness related to the large empty spaces of the main axis it makes me think of this film with Jim Carrey. He plays a character whose life is filmed, without his knowledge, for a reality show. His world is a gigantic film set.

Christian Larsen: Oh «The Truman Show» !! Yes, it’s like a movie set.

Vincent Fournier: And the satellite city would be the real life, as opposed to the heart of the city and all its administrations. I really like this movie! It reminds me of the parallel universes of Philip K Dick’s books.

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National Congress of Brazil #2, Brasília, 2019 Ink jet on Hahnemühle Baryta 315g 90 x 153 cm ed. 1/10 + 2AP

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Captain Edivaldo, General Army Headquarters, Brasília, 2019 Ink jet on Hahnemühle Baryta 315g 90 x 153 cm ed. 1/10 + 2AP


Chamber of Deputies [Annex IV] #2, Brasília, 2012 Ink jet on Hahnemühle Baryta 315g 90 x 153 cm ed. 9/10 + 2AP


Facade of the Claudio Santoro National Theater, concrete panel by Athos Bulcão, Brasília, 2012 Ink jet on Hahnemühle Baryta 315g 90 x 153 cm ed. 5/ 10 + 2AP


General Army Headquarters #1, Brasília, 2019 Ink jet on Hahnemühle Baryta 315g 90 x 153 cm ed. 1/10 + 2 AP


The Itamaraty Palace – Foreign Relations Ministry, wood and steel panel by Athos Bulcão, Brasília, 2012 Ink jet on Hahnemühle Baryta 315g 90 x 153 cm ed. 6/10 + 2AP


The National Museum #3, Brasília, 2019 Ink jet on Hahnemühle Baryta 315g 90 x 153 cm ed. 6/ 10 + 2AP


The National Museum, Brasília, 2012 Ink jet on Hahnemühle Baryta 315g 90 x 153 cm ed. 3/10 + 2AP


TV Tower, Brasília, 2012 Ink jet on Hahnemühle Baryta 315g 90 x 153 cm ed. 3/10 + 2AP


The Itamaraty Palace – Foreign Relations Ministry, stairs, Brasília, 2012 Ink jet on Hahnemühle Baryta 315g 90 x 153 cm ed. 6/10 + 2AP


Voting Chamber, Chamber of Deputies #2, Brasília, 2019 Ink jet on Hahnemühle Baryta 315g 90 x 153 cm ed. 1/10 + 2AP


Brasília Palace Hotel, Paranoa Lake #2, Brasília, 2019 Ink jet on Hahnemühle Baryta 315g 90 x 153 cm ed. 1/10 + 2AP


The Itamaraty Palace – Foreign Relations Ministry, spiral stairs, Brasília, 2012 Ink jet on Hahnemühle Baryta 315g 90 x 153 cm #2AP

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Vincent FournierPost Natural History

Vincent Fournier’s serie Post Natural History is presented in Hangar, Art Center (Brussels, BE), in the framework of Photo Brussels Festival

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Dans cet entretien avec Christian Larsen, Conservateur adjoint au Metropolitan Museum of Art à New York, l’artiste photographe Vincent Fournier s’exprime au sujet de la vision futuriste de la capitale brésilienne : Brasília.

TLmag : Comment est né votre intérêt pour Brasília ? S’inscrivait-il dans un plus vaste projet visant à photographier des villes utopiques, ou vous intéres-siez-vous à la capitale brésilienne en elle-même ?Vincent Fournier : Brasília est une ville unique. C’est magnifique et fascinant la façon dont la ville entière a été pen-sée et crée avec la même esthétique, la même cohérence. Quelle rigueur et quelle folie ! C’est aussi un cas très particulier puisqu’en seulement trois ans, l’archi-tecte Oscar Niemeyer et l’urbaniste Lucio Costa, ont littéralement fait naître cette ville en plein désert. Enfin il s’agit d’abord du Plan pilote, la partie administrative de Brasilia, mais 3 ans c’est comme un instantané à l’échelle de la construction d’une ville. Le plan pilote de la ville est ainsi resté inchangée, gelée dans le temps en raison de son inscription au patrimoine mondial de l’UNESCO. Brasilia montre la nostalgie de l’âge d’or du futur des années 60. C’est un temple moderniste fossilisé dans un avenir utopique qui n’a pas eu lieu. Mon intérêt pour Brasilia vient aussi de ma fascination pour les mythes et les histoires qui interrogent et explorent le futur ; de la science à l’architecture, en passant par la technologie. Tous mes projets : l’exploration spatiale, les robots humanoïdes, la transformation du vivant par la technologie ou encore l’architec-ture utopique ont en commun d’imaginer le futur dans une perspective historique, comme un archéologue qui daterait dif-férentes strates de temps. Il peut s’agir du futur du passé, ou bien d’un futur très proche, presque parallèle à notre pré-sent, ou bien encore d’un futur possible, une anticipation fantasmée. L’esthétique et la forme de ces univers « futuristes » me fascinent, tout comme leur façon de repenser les frontières du possible. Je suis allé à Brasília avec cette idée en tête. En découvrant la ville, j’ai décidé de n’en

1 — Le Palais d'Itamaraty (palais des arches), ministère des Affaires étrangères, escaliers /Itamaraty Palace, Stairs, 2012

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prendre que des clichés horizontaux, car ses nombreuses colonnes m’ont fait l’im-pression de pilotis et d’une ville capable de se tenir debout sur ses jambes. C’est donc un cadrage très cinématographique que j’ai adopté comme si je tournais un long plan séquence.

TLmag : J’y ai eu la même impression que vous : celle d’un vaste paysage hori-zontal. Ses bâtiments, ses proportions, tout semble y mettre l’horizon en valeur, à la façon d’un point de fuite. Votre choix d’un format horizontal m’a donc semblé très judicieux. J’imagine que vous y êtes avant tout allé pour décou-vrir les constructions et leurs espaces. Votre sélection pour TLmag laisse pen-ser que vous n’y avez guère rencontré de surprises ; vous est-il malgré tout arrivé d’entrer dans un bâtiment et d’y être frappé par un moment de beauté fugace que vous n’aviez jamais vu en photographie ? On connaît par exemple l’escalier en colimaçon d’Itamaraty, mais on voit rarement le treillis d’Athos Bulcão, qui forme un écran/une barrière spatiale et visuelle à son sommet. Qu’en pensez-vous ?V.F. : Votre vision d’une ville dont l’archi-tecture met en valeur un point de fuite est très intéressante ! L’utopie elle-même pourrait d’ailleurs être définie comme un point de fuite : une expé-rience de la pensée qui questionne le champ des possibles. Brasília est une ville hypnotique. J’étais avide de tout y découvrir. Je n’avais rien planifié : avec mon assistant brésilien, nous nous levions très tôt et passions toute la jour-née à marcher dans la ville. Lorsque quelque chose d’intéressant se présen-tait, nous restions plus longtemps pour réaliser des images.

TLmag : À la vue de certaines photogra-phies on ressent à la fois une écrasante sensation de vide et le luxe d’avoir prati-quement la ville entière pour soi. Ce type d’espace me procure souvent une impression de solitude. V.F. : C’est vrai. On a l’impression de déambuler dans un décors grandeur nature où la f iction se mêle à la réa-lité. Brasília me rappelle une nouvelle dans le l ivre de Jorge Luis Borges

intitulé Fictions, où « les collèges de car-tographes firent une carte de l’Empire, qui avait le format de l’Empire et qui coïncidait avec lui, point par point ». Tout y repose sur une conception très mathé-matique et abstraite de l’espace, comme si l’univers mathématique y absorbait l’univers physique. C’est là une contradic-tion : au lieu de rassembler les habitants au sein d’un espace partagé, comme le voulait Oscar Niemeyer, la ville les a sépa-rés et éloignés les uns des autres.

TLmag : Tout y est rationnellement sub-divisé en secteurs, qui séparent la population plutôt qu’elle ne l’intègre dans ses multiples activités. Les centres com-merciaux sont ainsi isolés des sec-teurs résidentiels, ou superquadras, eux- mêmes à l’écart des bâtiments administratifs et gouvernementaux. Ce type d’organisation m’a semblé très proche de la pensée moderniste, mais éloi-gné du socialisme, auquel adhérait pourtant Oscar Niemeyer. Il contraste éga-lement avec les judicieuses observations de Jane Jacobs sur l’animation de la rue, où cœxistent différentes activités com-merciales, sociales, professionnelles et récréatives, à n’importe quelle heure du jour et de la nuit. La richesse d’une ville réside dans la pluralité des habitants et des activités qui occupent un même espace au même moment. La subdivision de toutes ces fonctions et leur cloisonne-m e n t e n s e c t e u r s d o n n e n t d o n c à l’expérience urbaine une tonalité étrange-ment creuse et militaire. On se sent facilement seul dans une ville dont ces lon-gues étendues horizontales f ixent les proportions. Très surréaliste, Brasília ne m’en rappelle pas moins Los Angeles. Costa comme Niemeyer considéraient en effet que le centre-ville reposerait sur un mode de vie motorisé : les distances y sont calculées pour les automobiles et per-sonne ne s’y déplace à pied. Mais ces photographies semblent s’intéresser davantage à l’architecture et à l’aménage-ment du territoire qu’à l ’urbanisme. Avez-vous demandé à ces personnages solitaires de poser pour vous, ou se trou-vaient-ils simplement là à ce moment précis ? La photographie du Théâtre natio-nal donne l’impression que vous avez demandé à cet homme d’y monter pour

vous. Considériez-vous que ces espaces solitaires avaient besoin d’être animés par un ou plusieurs personnages ?V.F. : L’architecture me sert de décor comme dans un film. Je cherche un équilibre entre un style à la fois docu-mentaire, distancié, frontal et objectif, et des images soigneusement com-posées et mises en scènes. Ces gens étaient bien mais je leur ai simple-ment demandé s’ils étaient d’accord pour se laisser diriger et jouer un rôle. Mon but était de créer des situation dans une intention narrative et esthé-tique. Le personnage du Théâtre national est un danseur contempo-rain qui se promenait la. Je l’ai invité à improviser des mouvements en écho avec la forme du bâtiment . L’idée était de créer un dialogue, une ten-sion entre une architecture statique, lourde et massive et une petite sil-houette animée.

TLmag : Les photographies que vous avez prises et la sensation de déambuler seul à travers ces espaces sont très abstraites. Le sens du rythme, les matériaux et les espaces qu’ils délimitent constituent des abstractions géométriques tantôt désin-tégrées, tantôt ordonnées, mais toujours spacieuses. C’est un intéressant défi pour un photographe que de les saisir, et de le faire en beauté. Mais votre travail ne se contente pas d’égaler la meilleure abs-traction géométrique ou la meilleure photographie d’architecture : c’est la pré-sence ou l’absence humaine qui donnent de la profondeur ou confèrent de la poésie à vos clichés. Je suis intrigué par les espaces qui procurent la vague sensation d’un événement récent ou imminent, comme le hall du Brasília Palace Hotel, où une fête vient de se terminer, ou encore l’escalier bleu d’Itamaraty, qu’un impor-tant fonctionnaire pourrait à tout moment emprunter. V.F. : C’est juste. L’image du Brasília Palace Hotel est entièrement mise en scène. J’ai acheté ces ballons et tout composé, comme si une fête venait de s’y terminer.

TLmag : Cette mise en scène est très ingénieuse et contraste magnifiquement avec la fresque murale. Prévoyez-vous

2 — Le Palais d'Itamaraty (palais des arches), ministère des Affaires étrangères, Chambre des traités /The Itamaraty Palace Foreign relations Ministry, Treaty Room, 2012

3 — Le Palais d'Itamaraty /The Itamaraty Palace, 2012 TL

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de retourner à Brasília pour y prendre de nouvelles photographies ?V.F. : Oui j’y retourne pour faire de nou-velles images qui seront publiées dans un livre avec les Éditions Nœve à la fin de l’année. Après mon premier séjour à Brasília, j’ai cherché en vain un autre endroit qui ferait écho à ce que j’y avais trouvé : un esprit utopique et une vision du futur. Il y a bien sûr Chandigarh, mais cette ville a beaucoup changé. J’en reviens toujours à Brasília, la belle et unique Brasília, où je me réjouis en effet de retourner.

TLmag : J ’ai é g a l e m e n t ap p r é c i é Brasília, qui donne un fascinant aperçu d’un futur révolu. Peut-être qu’un jour, notre conception actuelle des villes deviendra elle aussi obsolète. Pensez-vous qu’il s’agisse d’un succès ou que certains aspects de la ville n’ont pas été à la hauteur des aspirations utopiques ? V.F. : C’est là une autre contradiction. L’utopie se heurte au désir. En effet, Brasília repose sur l’aspiration à trans-former la vie en une équation parfaite, en un langage global, une vision unique, mais ce désir se heurte toujours à la réalité. Prenons l’exemple des super-quadras : censés vivre dans ces milieux autonomes, les habitants n’ont pas voulu s’y confiner et ont recherché la diversité. Les superquadras n’ont pas fonctionné comme prévu, mais consti-tuent un admirable rêve que je respecte profondément. Les utopies sont néces-saires pour repenser le champ des possibles et bouleverser les normes. L’esthétique de la vil le de Brasil ia continue de me fasciner : tout y est par-faitement cadré et composé. Le vide lui-même y trouve sa place, dans un dia-logue avec le plein.

TLmag : La ville est très intéressante en termes d’esthétique. On a le sentiment de palais modernes inspirés de l’archi-tecture romaine antique, réduits et multipliés à grandes échelles. Dans ces vastes espaces vides, en particulier les grands champs d’herbes sur l ’a xe Monumental, on a l’impression que la ville pourrait à un moment donné conte-nir toute la population du Brésil si c’était nécessaire. Il y a cette idée d’espace et d’horizon infini. Mais c’est une contradic-tion. En effet, la ville n’a pas été conçue pour recevoir toute la population du Brésil. Le plan prévoyait 500 000 fonc-tionnaires. C’est aussi pour cette raison que c’est si étrange. Les employés du

gouvernement étaient censés habiter le plan central principal et les planifica-teurs ne s’attendaient pas à ce que des vagues d’immigration arrivent en ville. Les villes satellites se sont donc dévelop-pées pour accueillir tous les autres citoyens venus pour faire leur vie. Maintenant la ville compte plus de 2,5 millions d’habitants. C’est bien plus que ce que les planificateurs avaient envi-sagé de faire.V.F. :Les planificateurs ne s’attendaient pas à ce que les travailleurs restent dans la ville satellite de Brasilia une fois les travaux finis.Pour revenir à ce sentiment d’étran-geté lié aux grands espaces vides de l’axe principal ça me fait penser à ce film avec Jim Carrey. Il joue un person-nage dont la vie est f ilmée, sans qu’il le sache, pour une emission de télé réalité. Son monde est un gigantesque plateau de tournage.

TLmag : Oh « The Truman Show »!! Oui c’est comme un décors de film.V : Et la ville satellite serait la vraie vie, par opposition au cœur de la ville et toutes ses administrations.J’aime beaucoup ce film ! Ca me rap-pelle les univers parallèles des livres de Philip K Dick.

www.vincentfournier.co.uk @vincent_fournier_paris

@christianalexlarsen

Le Metropolitan Museum of Art à New York a fait l’acquisition pour sa collection permanente en 2016 de 5 œuvres de la série Brasilia.www.metmuseum.org

Un livre va paraître en 2019 aux Éditions Noeve sur ce travail photographique réa-lisé par Vincent Fournier à Brasilia, avec des contributions de Christian Larsen et de la conservatrice adjointe au MET New York en architecture et design, Beatrice Galilee.

Spazio Nobile représente Vincent Four-nier depuis 2016 et sa première exposition à la galerie Season I- Post Natural History www.spazionobile.com @spazionobilegaller

In this interview with Christian Larsen, Associate Curator at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, photographer Vincent Fournier speaks about the futuristic vision of the Brazilian capital: Brasília.

TLmag: How did your interest in Brasília start? Was it a larger project to go photo-graph utopian cities, or a specific interest in the Brazilian capital itself?Vincent Fournier: Brasília is very unique. It’s beautiful and fascinating how this city was designed with the same unified aes-thetic. What rigor and madness! It is also a very special case since in just three years, the architect Oscar Niemeyer and the urban planner Lucio Costa, liter-ally created this city in the middle of the desert, which, on the scale of the con-struction of a city, is instantaneous, like a photo that would immortalize a precise moment. The pilot plan of the city has thus remained unchanged, frozen in time due to its UNESCO World Heritage des-ignation. Brasilia shows the nostalgia for the golden age of the future of the 60s. It is a modernist temple fossilized in a utopian future that did not take place. My interest in Brasilia also comes from my fascination with myths and stories that question and explore the future, from science to architecture, to technol-ogy. All my projects: space exploration, humanoid robots, the transformation of life through technology or even utopian architecture have in common to imag-ine the future in a historical perspective, as an archaeologist who dates different time strata. It may be the future of the past, or of a future very near, almost par-allel to our present, or even of a possible future, a fantasized anticipation. The aesthetics and form of these “futuristic” worlds fascinate me, as do their way of rethinking the boundaries of the pos-sible. I went to Brasília with this idea in mind. When I discovered the city with all those stilt-like columns, I photographed in horizontals only because I had this vi-sion of a “walking city”: a city with legs. I framed the city this way, with a very cinematographic mood, just like a long sequence shoot.

TLmag: I had the same impression of Brasí lia when I was there, that it is a vast horizontal, sweeping landscape. The buildings, their proportions, every-thing seems to emphasize the horizon, a vanishing point. It was very smart that you chose to frame them in the hori-zontal format. I assume you were going

4 — North Super Block 107, Building I 185, 2012

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5 — Chambre des députés, annexe IX #2 /Deputies Chamber Annex IX #2, 20126 — Tribunal suprême fédéral /Federal Supreme Court Palace, 2012

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7 — Façade du théâtre national Claudio Santoro, panneau en béton de Athos Bulcão /Façade of the Claudio Santoro National Theater, concrete panel by Athos Bulcão, 2012

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97P H OTO G R A P H I C J O U R N EY V i n c e n t Fo u r n i e r - B r a s í l i aArchitectural Landscapes96Architectural Landscapes P H OTO G R A P H I C J O U R N E Y V i n c e n t Fo u r n i e r - B r a s í l i a

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8 — Grand "hall vert" du Palais du Congrès national, mur en carreaux de céramique d'Athos Bulcıão /Green Hall at the National Congress Palace, ceramic tile by Athos Bulcão, 2012

12 — Le théâtre national Claudio Santoro, mur de céramique d'Athos Bulcão /The Claudio Santoro National Theater, ceramic tile by Athos Bulcão, 2012

9 — L'hôtel Brasilia Palace #1, hall avec mur en céramique d'Athos Bulcão /The Brasilia Palace Hotel #1, Hall with a ceramic wall by Athos Bulcão, 2012

10 — Le Palais d'Itamaraty (palais des arches), ministère des Affaires étrangères, panneau en bois et acier d'Athos Bulcão 11 — /The Itamaraty Palace, Foreign Relations Ministry, wood and steel panel by Athos Bulcão

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people to stand there, to give this feeling, to impose this situation. It’s all staged, but all the ingredients are real. These people were actually there. I talked with them and asked if they would mind following my in-structions. The photo you’re talking about, the man is a contemporary dancer who happened to be there. I told him it would be interesting for him to propose some moves that will echo the shape of the building. It is an aesthetic intention to give a tension between a big solid concrete composition and something very dynamic on the scale of the small human figure.

TLmag: The photographs you took and the feeling of walking through these spaces are both very abstract. The sense of rhythm, materials, the spaces they define, they are geometric abstractions. Sometimes they disintegrate, sometimes they are orderly, but they are always spa-cious. It’s an interesting challenge for a photographer to capture this, and you do it beautifully. Your photos have the qual-ity of the best geometric abstraction and architectural photography, but you give us something more. These spaces take on their sense of scale and poetry with the human presence, or lack thereof. I was intrigued by spaces where you sense an event will happen or has already hap-pened, but you can’t guess hallway of the Brasília Palace Hotel. What went on here? Or the blue stairway ramp at Itamaraty. I have the sense an important government off icial might ascend or descend the stairs at any moment in a ceremonial dis-play of pomp and circumstance.VF: That’s right. The image of the Brasília Palace Hotel is completely staged. I bought these balloons and staged every-thing as if we were there “after the party.”

TLmag: It’s very smart. It plays off the mural in a very beautiful way. So you’re going back to Brasí l ia to take more photos?VF: Yes I will go back to Brasilia in order to make new images that will be published in a book with Noeve Editions at the end of the year. After my first trip, I wanted to find another place to echo what I found in Brasília, the utopian spirit and a vision of the future. But I didn’t find it. Of course you have Chandigarh but it changed a lot since the original city. I ended up circling back to Brasília, the unique and beautiful Brasilia. That’s why I want to go back.

TLmag: I enjoyed the city as well, in part because it ’s a fascinating look at the

future past. The way that we used to think cities might be one day. Do you think it was a success? Or do you think aspects of the city fell short of those utopian aspirations?VF: That’s the contradiction. Utopia is a contradiction about desire. Brasilia could be the desire to turn life into a perfect equation, a global language, a unique vi-sion but reality always resists… If we’re talking about the Superquadras for in-stance; I was told people were meant to live in the Superquadras as a self-con-tained life. But people didn’t want to stay in the same Superquadra, they wanted variety. So it didn’t work in the expected way. However, it is a beautiful dream that I respect a lot. We need utopias to question the fields of possibilities and challenge the norms. I am also fascinated by the aes-thetic of the city. It is hypnotic. Everything is so perfectly framed and composed. Even the emptiness is part of the compo-sition and echoes with the fullness.

TLmag:The city is very interesting in terms of aesthetics. One has the sense that these modern palaces, that take cues from ancient Roman architecture, stripped down and multiplied to enor-mous modern dimensions, one has the sense that in these vast empty spaces, if the city needed to, especially on the Eixo Monumental, those large grassy fields, that the city could contain all of the population of Brazil in a given moment if needed. It has this sense of infinite space, that if all Brazilians marched on Brasília, the city would hold them. It feels like the always continuous horizon, that it is infi-nite. Here’s another contradiction: the city was not planned to contain all of Brazil’s population. It was planned for 500,000 government workers. This is also why it is so strange. The government workers were meant to inhabit the main central plan. But the planners didn’t expect that waves of immigration would come to the city, and so the satellite cities evolved, to accommodate all the other citizens who came here to build their lives. Now the city is 2.5 million. It’s far more than the plan-ners ever envisioned it holding.VF:: The planners did not expect workers to stay in the satellite city of Brasilia once the work is done. To come back to this feeling of strangeness related to the large empty spaces of the main axis it makes me think of this film with Jim Carrey. He plays a character whose life is f ilmed, without his knowledge, for a reality show. His world is a gigantic film set.

TLmag: Oh “the Truman Show”. Like a stage set.VF: And the satellite city would be real life, as opposed to the heart of the city and all its administrations.I really like this movie! It reminds me of the parallel universes of Philip K Dick’s books.

www.vincentfournier.co.uk @vincent_fournier_paris

@christianalexlarsen

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has made the acquisition in 2016 of 5 large formats photographs from the Brasilia séries.

www.metmuseum.org

A book on this series of photographs, with contributions by Christian Larsen and Beatrice Galilee, Associate Curator of Architecture and Design at The Metro-politain Museum of Art, will be published by Noeve in 2019

Spazio Nobile represents Vincent Four-nier since 2016 and his first gallery exhibi-tion Season I- Post Natural History www.spazionobile.com @spazionobilegallery

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15 — Le Palais d'Itamaraty (palais des arches), ministère des Affaires étrangères, escalier en spirales /Itamaraty Palace, Spiral Stairs, 2012

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S P E C I A L G U E S T S 19Appetizers V i n c e n t Fo u r n i e r – K i n t s u g i , H ô t e l d ' H e i d e l b a c h , m u s é e G u i m e t , Pa r i s

Vincent Fournier Kintsu�

Par /by Y-Jean Mun-Delsalle Photos de /by Vincent Fournier

En exclusivité pour TLmag et Spazio Nobile, l’artiste français a produit une série de photographies inspirées de l’art séculaire

du « kintsugi » et de son amour pour l’esthétique japonaise.

The French artist draws inspiration from the ancient art of kintsugi and his love of Japanese aesthetics for his new photographic series

produced exclusively for and Spazio Nobile

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Capable de sublimer les défauts, le « kintsugi » est une technique japonaise de réparation des porcelaines ou céramiques brisées au moyen de laque mélangée à de la poudre d’or, d’argent ou de platine. En prenant le parti de magnifier les fissures et les accrocs plutôt que de les dissimuler, cette technique évite de jeter les pièces endommagées, leur donne une seconde vie et les transf igure même en de luxueuses pièces aux veines illuminées. Le « kintsugi » symbolise également la résilience psychologique associée au « wabi-sabi », la philosophie japonaise qui exalte la beauté de l’imper-manence et de l’imperfection, et à l’esthétique nippone qui valorise les marques d’usure d’un objet. Passionné par le Japon, un pays qu’il sillonne et où il travaille depuis vingt ans – il a participé par exemple à l’expo-sition collective inaugurée en octobre 2019 au Mori Art Museum de Tokyo –, l’artiste français Vincent Fournier s’est inspiré de cette technique du XVe siècle pour sa nouvelle série de dix photographies prises dans l'hôtel d'Heidelbach (pavillon du thé) du Musée national des arts asiatiques – Guimet (MNA AG). Recollés, marbrés de papier doré puis re-photogra-phiés, ces clichés de femmes en kimono témoignent selon lui d’un « heureux accident, le réassemblage d’un bel objet brisé, qui évoque à [ses] yeux les rouages de la mémoire. Afin de faire ressurgir un souvenir incomplet et fragmentaire, il faut nécessairement le modifier, en réagencer les pièces dans notre esprit, explique-t-il. En remontant à la surface, il se teinte alors de nos senti-ments présents. Nos souvenirs ne sont en réalité que des réminiscences de notre mémoire. Leur dynamique décrit une trajectoire passé/présent/avenir et l’art du « kintsugi » repose à mon sens sur un mécanisme simi-laire. En recomposant l’image dans ce cas précis, il réintègre le passé et ses états d’âme à notre vécu actuel et instantané. »

Embracing flaws, kintsugi is the Japanese art of re-pairing broken pottery with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver or platinum. By high-lighting cracks and holes instead of hiding them or throwing away the object, a damaged ceramic ves-sel becomes useful again and even an expression of luxury with its illuminated seams. The craft is also a symbol of psychological resilience associated with the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi – the beauty of impermanence and imperfection – and Japanese aesthetics that value marks of wear and tear through the usage of an object. For French artist Vincent Fournier, this 15th-century technique was the point of departure for his new series of ten photographs shot at the Guimet Museum of Asian arts in Paris. Passionate about Japan, a country that he has been travelling to and working in for the past 20 years (his work is in the group show, Future and the Arts opened in October 2019 at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo), these images of kimono-clad Japanese women that have been spliced and overlaid with gold paper, then photographed again, tell the story of “a beautiful acci-dent,” he says. “Something beautiful that was broken, then reattached. For me, it has to do with the work of memory. When we search for a memory, incomplete and fragmentary, we necessarily change this memory. We reattach the pieces in our minds. By bringing the memory to the surface, we modify it and recolour it with our present feelings. Our memories are memo-ries of memories. It is a dynamic process from the past to the present and the future. I believe that kintsugi has something to do with that. This ‘reassembly’ is a way of integrating the past and its feelings into our present.”

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2120 Appetizers V i n c e n t Fo u r n i e r – K i n t s u g i , H ô t e l d ' H e i d e l b a c h , m u s é e G u i m e t , Pa r i sV i n c e n t Fo u r n i e r – K i n t s u g i , H ô t e l d ' H e i d e l b a c h , m u s é e G u i m e t , Pa r i sAppetizers

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Info

Atelier Jespers, arch. Victor Bourgeois, photo Filip Dujardin

Vincent Fournier, solo show Brasília, Modernist Utopias

Spazio Nobile, Rue Franz Merjay 142, 1050 Brussels , Belgium Wed - Sat, 11am - 6pm Lise Coirier , assisted by Salomé Elbaz T. +32 (0) 2 768 25 10 M. + 32 (0) 475 53 19 88 [email protected] [email protected]

Atelier Jespers, Jean-François Declercq, T. +32 (0) 475 64 95 81www.atelierjesper.com

Press & PR: Sophie Carrée, +32 (0) 2 346 05 00 [email protected] www.sophiecarree.be

Cover: Vincent Fournier, The National Museum#3, arch. Oscar Niemeyer Brasília, Brazil, photograph, 2019, 90 x 153 cm, ed. 6/10 + 2AP

Cover of TL Mag 32, Contemporary Applied Arts, The Culture of Gesture by Vincent Fournier, Kintsugi, Hôtel d’Heidelbach, musée Guimet, Paris

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Atelier Jespers has hosted in its public/private Modernist house renown designers and architects such as Domeau & Peres, Michael Anastassiades and architecture duo Berger & Berger. Major events of the Belgian cultural scene have happened there in the past 5 years. It has established itself as a key venue for Brussels artistic programming. The setting of the Modernist house built up in 1928 by Belgian architect Victor Bourgeois, member of the CIAM and first professor at the Architecture studio of La Cambre, provides to Atelier Jespers, the historical and aesthetic anchorage and an exceptional frame to welcome art & design, architecture and photography exhibitions.

Atelier Jespers

By opening Spazio Nobile in April 2016, in the dynamic and cosmopolitan Ixelles neighbourhood of Brussels (Belgium), Lise Coirier and Gian Giuseppe Simeone have united their passions for design and art history, initiating a dialogue between contemporary applied arts, design and photography. Commissioning installations that are both experimental and artistic, with a particular sensibility to everything connected to nature and minerality, the gallery organises four to five exhibits each year, dedicated to both rising and established talents. Without creating borders between the disciplines, the visual arts interact with the fine arts.

www.spazionobile.com @spazionobilegallery #spazionobilegallery #spazionobile

vincent fournier, solo show brasília, modernist utopias...capital coincides with the beginning of...

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