Jean-Marc Bustamante
Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac / 15 janvier - 5 mars 2016 Ces neuf Apertures s’inscrivent dans le parcours d’un artiste des circulations sémantiques et du « OANI » (Objet Artistique Non Identifié), un parcours entrepris dès les années 1980 avec les Tableaux, photographies grand format jouant du « devenir tableau » de la photographie lorsque celle-ci agrandit sa taille et se fait objet unique. Bustamante ne cultive pas innocemment l’ambiguïté. Sa démarche privilégie entre-deux de la perception et interstices du sens. De quoi s’agitil : photographie, peinture, montage, bricolage ? Une expérience menée au plus proche de l’ascèse poétique. This exhibition consists of nine largeformat pieces featuring lines and colored brushstrokes on a pale yellow background. On closer inspection, instead of paintings, they turn out to be photographic reports. Jean-Marc Bustamante used graph paper to reproduce his freehand drawings, photographed the result and then printed the large-scale blowups on silver paper. The effect is that of a series marked by methodological repetition. The title of the ensemble, which is also that of each of its constituents, Aperture, casts further doubt on this deliberately ambiguous enterprise. Where does copying and mechanical reproduction end and art begin? An aperture is a gap, usually allowing you to see through something and glimpse something else. It also refers to the opening of the diaphragm that controls the amount of light entering a camera. In short, multiple entries into the media and forms used in this transversal and enigmatic work. These nine Apertures are a natural continuation of this artist’s interest in semantic circulations and ONA (Unidentified Artistic Objects) going back to the 1980s when he made Les Tableaux, large-scale photos demonstrating how a photo can become a painting when enlarged and displayed as a unique object. Bustamante’s cultivation of ambiguity is never innocent. His approach brings out the gaps in our perception and the interstices of the senses. What are we looking at, photos, paintings, montages, bricolage? As he carries out these experiments unwaveringly, the result is a kind of poetic asceticism.
Translation, L-S Torgoff