Patrick Faigenbaum

Barbara Gladstone Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition by Patrick Faigenbaum. Born in Paris, Faigenbaum now lives and works in France and Italy.

Faigenbaum is best known for his photographs of the Italian aristocracy. These proud, elegant subjects are not merely documentary or society portraits: they circumscribe a group to which one cannot belong, unless by birth. The subjects personify a hierarchy where social standing and financial stability are subject to unrelenting atrophy.

This exhibition of new photographs represents two years work and extends Faigenbaum’s interest focusing on elements of the family and social structure. The photographs also function as a kind of diary of his activities. Having recently become a father, the experience has informed this new body of work. Individual photographs are shown either in groups, referring to one another or as single images. An early portrait of the artist’s mother (a key picture for Faigenbaum), is shown in a fresh context along side women of a similar age group and of varying family origins. Faigenbaum emphasizes their collective experience of maturity.

The formal nature of this work refers to the conventions of painting. For example, the blue of the blanket covering the bed on which Faigenbaum’s wife reclines is found in many historical depictions of the Madonna and child. A sense of the continuity of life is expressed by the inclusion of a triptych of his wife giving birth to their child. There is a photograph of a medieval stone memorial from Rodin’s personal collection. This tender figurative sculpture is contrasted with a photograph of the rough, textural surfaces of limestone and flint walls found in the catacombs under Rodin’s studio in Meudon near Paris. Faigenbaum makes reference to an earlier period where life and death were not experienced within the confines of a modern hospital.

The exhibition includes eight photographs taken in Bremen, Germany. Faigenbaum recently spent some six months photographing the town and its inhabitants. These works mark a development with the inclusion of his first color prints: he has also changed the shape of the negative. By varying the dimensions of his compositions Faigenbaum has brought a cinematic quality to simple social exchanges, such as a couple in a cafe. Like his earlier work in Italy, these pictures are more than a documentary record of the town. They give a sense of the people, their origins and the social and demographic changes that are taking place.

Patrick Faigenbaum participated in Documenta X, 1997 at Kassel, Germany and is currently exhibiting the Bremen pictures at the Neues Museum Weserburg, Bremen, Germany from January 24th. Pressetext

Patrick Faigenbaum