|
Denis Darzacq – Absences Galerie Laurence Miller A reliable feature of good art is its ability to take on new resonance. When Denis Darzacq initiated this body of work he couldn’t have known how profoundly the concept of absence would speak to the emptying out of the cafés and street life in his native Paris this year. In a uniquely insular moment when many have been afforded a time for greater reflection and self-reliance, Darzacq’s process of mining his own work for raw material also rings true. By cutting and tearing recent photographic prints of his own work he generated a wealth of formal material that could be recombined endlessly to yield surprising new compositions. The saturated colors, strong lighting, and shallow relief yield images that are at once abstract and hyperreal. If these works ultimately erase the subjects of Darzacq’s previous works they also read convincingly as newly formed worlds. As ever, out of the old comes the new. In 1994 he began a series exploring the nocturnal life of Parisians titled “Only Heaven”, which he exhibited at various photo festivals. In 1999 the French Ministry of Culture commissioned him a body of work on French youth. The interaction between man and urban space and, more precisely, the suburbs have been a driving force in his recent work. |
Denis Darzacq Absence N°13, 2018 Galerie Laurence Miller |
