| From Photoworkshop.com Wisdom and Inspiration Brotherly Affection Last year photographer Felicia Murray, about whom I did an article for Double Exposure in 2006, suggested that I write about Martine Fougeron, a French photographer living in New York City. I was not familiar with her work, but this year Martine and I both had prints in the Camera Club of New York’s auction at the PEER Gallery, and I saw her imagery for the first time. I liked her large color photograph of her two sons dining at home, and we got together for the interview.
Martine Fougeron: I was born in Paris, France in my paternal grandparents' house in the XX eme section of Paris which looked just like an Atget photograph since Haussman had not destroyed it. It was a real quartier (section) “un quartier populaire" close to the Pere Lachaise Cemetery where so many Communards (fighters for the French Revolution) got their death sentence in 1871. My great great maternal grandparents founded a business in lemonade in the 1880’s. They put the fizz into the custom-made bottles on which my great-grandfather had had engraved on a cyan bottle with a silver pourer. My grandfather said he had invented the word ‘Pshitt” because they put the fizz in natural lemonade. They owned two houses on two blocks—one for each of the brothers separated by all these custom-made bottles, which were being continuously filled and shipped and trucked all about France. The courtyard was vast and all cobbled. From the house, I would observe the comings and goings; it was my little playground. I was invited to have dessert with him at 12:45 sharp and would always go a bit earlier to watch him eat at one corner of the big table in what seemed to be a huge "salle a manger" (dining room). However, I was not allowed to say anything. In those days, young people under the age of five did not address adults directly unless they were spoken to first and questioned. It was still the 19th century. But this silence gave me the opportunity to observe it all: all worn out was his Laguiole knife, which he used only when he ate his cheese with his wine from Burgundy set in a crystal carafe, the cuisiniere who would discretely come in and then bring his pastery: un éclair au café (an eclaire with coffee) for myself and him. And I could see the big pool table in the salon and all the leather-bound books in his library with the Greek and Latin Classics as well as the French repertoire of Literature. The memories of my maternal great grandfather who was born in 1879 are engraved in my affective memory and create a link with the 19th century for me, a world almost closer to the Hellenistic and Humanist tradition than our world today which is closer to the virtual outer space and vast global world. . RS: What brought you to the United States? MF: I came to the New York as a child, when I was five, with my parents as my father came to ‘les Ameriques’ to be the general manager of the Michelin Corporation. He established the Michelin brand in the United States from 1960 to 1970. The French community was small then and tight. I went to the Lycee Français de New York School. When we arrived in 1960, during the JFK years, my mother was often called Jacqueline because she looked like Jackie. I will never forget the day of JFK’s inauguration because it snowed. I had rarely seen snow before, and it all seemed magical, between his charisma and the snow, it seemed nothing could go wrong, but unfortunately it did. Two years later, I watched the sad procession of an assassinated president with a big American flag, on a long coffin. It seemed like a curtain of hope and innocence had suddenly fallen to never rise again completely; except if Barrack Obama manages to win the presidential election. Since then, my life has been a constant coming and going between Paris and New York, which house my two alma maters. I stayed in New York until 1967 and arrived in Paris to live through the May 1968 era, which shook the country so deeply that it would never be the same.
MF: My grandparents collected paintings by fauvists and impressionists. My grandfather was an artist, a violinist, a cinematographer who shot the “Liberation de Paris,” a painter and a photographer. He had a keen eye and befriended many artists. My grandmother’s parents designed bronze lamps and did casting for such artists as Auguste Rodin; so the house was full of these wild sculptures, which I would gaze at for hours. My grandfather had film cameras and photographic equipment, which fascinated me so, he taught me how to shoot. I would observe how he measured the light, how he positioned himself, how close he would get to us - the subjects. He was also making big color prints of his favorite pictures, which at the time was rare. My father also was an avid photographer who bought a Leica, which was his constant companion, and which I now own. My grandfather and my father would talk, compare their technical prowess and shoot incessantly. So photography was part of my daily experience. The process also was part of my daily life. We would have family reunions during which we watched the 16 mm films shot during the holidays or for a wedding anniversary or for an exotic discovery: Amsterdam, the Liberation of Paris, Vietnam, Hanoi, all these exotic places which populated my mind in a world here TV was still non-existent or scarce. RS: Did you study it formally? Where? MF: Upon entering Wellesley College, I took a black-and-white darkroom class and learned how to develop negatives and prints. I also took my first night job, and as soon as I had earned enough money, the first thing I bought was a Nikkormat. I wanted to be an international ‘reporter’ so I studied international affairs, majored in political science and got my degree in 1975 from Wellesley College after which I returned to France. Also a friend of mine gave me a book on Edward Steichen when I was 17. I was fascinated by the sculptures of Rodin in the Rodin Museum as well as by the collaboration between Rodin and Steichen in Meudon under the moonlight. The accounts of Rilke on his meeting with the Master as well as Rilke’s book Letters to an Unknown Poet really inspired me in finding my artistic vision. I always sensed and thought visually. For 13 years I was in the perfume and luxury industry as Creative Director, as ‘nose of the noses.' I was working with the 20 world-class perfumers at IFF, the ‘ghosts’ who make the perfumes and the scents in their scent- laboratories for the L’Oreals, the Estee Lauders, the Givenchy’s, the Muglers. As the evanescent nature of a perfume is difficult to describe, I was constantly referring to my visual sense to ‘see a smell”, to visualize a structural composition as well as sense harmonic masses of dominant and complimentary colors to transcribe the emotional marvel of a creative perfume. I would listen to a client’s description and understand the concept as well as the emotion sought after, which I could translate into a particular olfactory state. I guess that I have these sense-aesthetic capabilities. When I was in perfumery, I would really see the structure and the emotion of the perfume. In my photographic work, I smell the scene. I attempt to capture the pause in the middle of the flurry. In 2001, I started taking more and more personal pictures. It so happened that my camera broke down and that the camera could not be repaired because the manufacturer was not making the pieces any more. This depressed me greatly. So I turned to digital and large-format cameras when I took single classes at ICP. This is in way became a saving grace because I explored new technical and expressive avenues. I got so absorbed that I applied for the one-year intense General Studies program at ICP.
MF: I went to see the film on the first day it came out. I was very intrigued. I liked the film as I thought it portrayed quite well the power of an odor and of a scent. I do not think that it was as evocative as the book, which was unbearable for me. I could hardly go beyond the first chapter where the odors of the fish are described. They were such powerful evocations that I was getting sick and I had to put the book down because I felt nauseous. During the film, I was able to view the entire story and did not feel nauseous. So, the evocations, by being visual and not just an imagination of a smell based on words on which one can linger were less strong for me in the film than in the book. RS: Do you feel that being in New York has promoted your photography more than say being in Paris? MF: Definitely. Just to give you an example: when I was doing my final project at ICP, a professor mentioned that I should submit my work to the Golden Light Award Competition. I did, and I won the Portraiture First Prize juried by Kathy Ryan. A few months later, I got a call from a number (1-111-1212), which gleamed, on my caller ID phone. Strange number, I thought, probably a direct marketing scam. So, I didn’t pick up. However, I did listen to the call afterwards, and it was an assignment for the New York Times Sunday Magazine! Now that would never happen in France. An unknown, 50- plus year-old and a woman that has not struggled in that milieu or wined and dined and with the right people wouldn’t even have a chance. France is a more rigid society that has fossilized itself in a nice comfort, ‘un endormissement’ (dream world) that is going to be difficult to change. The United States is still a mobile society on the lookout for talent. Also undeniably, New York has been the center of the art world in both contemporary painting and in photography for the past 40 years. RS: Do you think of your imagery as being particularly French? Why or why not? MF: When I am in France and professionals see my work, they say it feels American, intimate, personal in the direction of Nan Goldin (who lives in France!) or Harry Callahan. The French tradition in photography is not steeped in the personal observation of one’s intimate daily or family life. It seems almost a bit odd to the reserved French. I did show my work at Paris Photo last November with the French Galerie Esther Woerdehoff and got some interesting responses. On the other hand, when I show the work in the United States, like last year at Review Santa Fe, many reviewers said it felt so European and the adolescents looked so multi-cultural and that the composition was classic—like Julia Margaret Cameron perhaps. So, I guess that I belong in a bi-cultural no woman’s land... RS: Tell me about your upcoming exhibition at the Peter Hay Halpert Gallery: it this part of the imagery you have been exploring previously, or is it a new series?
I represent the real only in so far as it is the cumulative visualization of many similar key experiences or meta-moments, which I wish to capture. I seek out mysterious tensions between the spontaneous and the staged. The additional use of artificial lighting is set up only to mold and freeze forever a sought after expression as well as sculpt the unique quality of luminescence of an adolescent’s skin texture. If I use a posed construct, it is only to ‘accentuate the lines‘ as Rodin points out in his sculpture. My inspiration comes from Dutch painting, especially Vermeer's mysterious domestic scenes and Rembrandt's expressive tableaux. I am also influenced by conventions of cinema, especially the dramatic effects of set lighting in order to capture the feeling of a timeless cinema still, locked in time to express the fugacity and evolution of this subliminal state of adolescence. This series is an on-going series for me, at least while the children live with me. And this will most likely continue until I have the pleasure of seeing them grown up —like Nicholas Nixon with the Brown sisters or Harry Callahan with wife Eleanor. I have always marveled at both of these photographers’ work that have taken time and patient love on their part to produce. So, I do not overdo the shooting. I am rarely in the house with the camera. I respect their intimate moments. I also respect their time with their friends. And when I shoot with them, I have pre-visualized many desired scenes and then one day, it all seems to come together. And I grab my camera. The picture is an accumulation of subtle and innumerable similar moments though there is always a perfect moment. I am after that perfect moment, whether it is the decisive one or the incisive one or the timeless one, which are perhaps all the same. RS: Has photographing your sons strengthened your relationship with them at all? MF: It has intensified our relationship, enhancing my observation of them and of their lives within themselves and with their friends. It has allowed me to be, not a mere actor in their lives but an observer, a 'seer' in and of their lives, which allows for a subjective detachment.
MF: When I started the project, my two sons reacted in completely divergent manners. The eldest son who was 15 was very resistant and the youngest one who was 14 was very cooperative. I had started the project and I only had pictures of my younger son Adrien who was fourteen and extremely happy to be the star protagonist and enchanted to learn about lighting and photography which is a passion for him. My younger son who is extremely curious learned photography through the process of being the subject. He even gave me great advice at times; it was a collaboration. Like in this picture for example. Adrien had just shaved his head the day before. It was a radical departure from his long hair. At sunset, he sat there, and while we were talking, I was photographing him. He was patient while I set the proper aperture and shutter speed as I was shooting into the sun. I loved the resonance of his smooth and round head with the distant hills. My older son was in full revolt with me when I started the 'TETE-A-TETE' series in 2005, He was 15. His power over me was to refuse being photographed. Fair enough. As soon as he saw my 4x5, he would run. However, by tricking him, I did manage to get one picture of him while eating dinner with his younger brother . My concept was to have a domestic scene of a dinner at home, thinking of all the familiar work of interiors by Vermeer. It is one of the first photos of my 'Tête-à-Tête’ Series that I photographed with a 4x5 camera, which I had borrowed from ICP and put on a tripod. It was at night, and I had prepared a really nice American cheeseburger with lettuce and tomato. I had set up a hot light and put the 4 x 5 camera on a tripod, composed the scene, pre-focused and pre-measured the camera on my son's hypothetical head position because I know how he always sits. Therefore, I put a cashmere sweater pinned to the velour seat to mark his position and achieve this domestic dinner scene even without his cooperation. It had been his way of asserting his resistance and defiance which one feels in his expression. I called his name as he was eating and snapped the picture instantly as I knew I only had one real chance. Usually I fiddle a lot with the camera, and he did not expect me to take the photo so quickly. He was accustomed to the dark cloth routine, the laborious focusing on the ground glass and light measurements... the fitting of the sheet. So, my little trick worked. I got the picture, and now Nicolas loves it.
Now that they are respectively 17 and 16, they are both into the project as they realize it is a diary of their lives. They are both more cooperative because their friends like the pictures and have told them how they really felt their individual presence and personality in the pictures as well as the pictures expressed their life, as if one of them had taken it. RS: How would you compare this work with your children to say, Sally Mann's imagery of her children? MF: Sally Mann's seminal work is an inspiration to me in the intimacy she evokes and the perfection of her mysterious and beautiful prints. Having the courage to photograph her daily life was an inspiration and a license for me. My work starts at age fourteen and is mostly on boys' adolescence. I think Sally started earlier than me, with a strong presence of girls if I am not mistaken. Comparing is always a difficult task for the artists, which I prefer to leave to the critics.
MF: I want to continue the Tête-à-Tête Series while my two sons are still adolescents. I hope to be able to publish a book from this series and am presently exploring book and writing options. A book is a totally different medium because it lasts. I am interested in exploring a book, which would speak to a large group of parents, grandparents, mentors, godparents, cousins and uncles who sort of ignore the adolescent boys’ life with its hopes and fears. So much emphasis has been given to girls, and so little to boys. Or what is portrayed of boys is rather sensational such as drugs, outcasts and violence. I want to show the other side, the eternal and yet modern side of raising an adolescent boy to be a man in a multi-cultural environment, which is the global environment of the future. I want to show the subtle and specific rituals of passage and metamorphosis involved in this young urban and highly aware generation. I also want to continue my editorial work. I like the freedom and the exploration, which top editors encourage and push the limits of an individual’s work. I have just finished a piece for the Spring Fashion Issue of New York Magazine, which I shot in my home with my adolescent sons and their friends who are all multi-cultural and multi-devotional from the Lycee Francais de New York School. It portrays these adolescents living in my home for an entire weekend. They lived their lives and integrated different outfits in their own individualized and graciously unabashed manner, while playing cards, drumming away or hanging out in their “tribal” bedrooms. When the fashion object is not a status object but becomes a second skin, a second skin that enhances one’s inner awareness and sensuality is what I tried to capture. It will come February 18th on the newsstands. Simultaneously, I want to start a totally new series on Memories and Scents. As mentioned previously, I was in perfumery for 13 years before moving on. I have been toying with the fantasy of very intimate visual and olfactory portraits. I want to ally the strong evocation of both arts. I believe that perfume and photography share the charm of invisible and emotional thread-memories that I want to inter-compose in a very individual way. In an era of mass-market fragrances and massive stock photos, I would like to create very individualistic scent-memory portraits, which could be meaningful ‘Madeleine de Proust’ evocations. RS: Sounds fascinating; I can’t wait to see them—good luck with the project! *Quote: Auguste Rodin, Interview by Peter Gesell, Rodin on Art, 1905, upon being asked the question: Mr. Rodin, since you speak so much of Nature, have you ever considered molding a real person? To learn more about Martine Fougeron, visit www.martinefougeron.com Contact martine Fougeron at martine@martinefougeron.com Artist’s Reception at Peter Hay Halpert Fine Art, 511 West 25 th street, Gallery 306 on Thursday, February 28, 2008 from 6:00 to 8:00 pm. The exhibition runs through April 12, 2008.
The Exhibition Catalogue Tete-a-Tete is available AT PHOTO-EYE.COM. THIS IS THE WEB ADDRESS: http://www.photoeye.com/templates/mShowDetailsbyCatAmazon.cfm?Catalog=ZD333&CFID=321435&CFTOKEN=83362912 IT IS ALSO AVAILABLE ATTHE GALLERY PETER HAY HALPERT AT 511 WEST 25TH STREET, GALLERY 306. PRICE IS 30.00 Robert A. Schaefer, Jr. is a founding member of Photoworkshop.com, and has been a fine-art photographer for over 30 years. His work is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York as well as the Bibliothéque Nationale in Paris, France. In 1999—2000 he had a 25-year retrospective of his work at the Huntsville Museum of Art in Huntsville, Alabama, his home state. His exhibition, Two Sides of the Coin—which deals with his German family and the Holocaust—was held at the DeFrog Gallery in Houston, TX in March, April and May 2004 as a part of Fotofest. Two images from this exhibition were recently purchased by the Houston Museum of Fine Arts. Most recently he had a one-person exhibition (November 10, 2007 to January 8, 2008) at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts in Montgomery, Alabama. This work is a body of documentary images of a farmer in North Alabama. Schaefer writes about photography for Double Exposure, Fotophile Magazine in New York City and The Photo Review in Pennsylvania. He teaches photography in the Department of Continuing and Professional Studies at New York University. Robert can be contacted at rasjrpro@earthlink.net and www.schaeferphoto.com © Copyright 2002 by Photoworkshop.com |
