The Conseil départemental du Gard produces at the Château d'Assas «Summer Time», an exhibition imagined and specially created by the French-American photographer Martine Fougeron.
The exhibition consists of two parts: the presentation of 17 large-format photographs that trace the transition from adolescence to adulthood of his two sons between 2005 and 2018 and the creation of a film that tells the arrival of his parents in the Cévennes in the early 1960s. These two formats echo in a dialogue and resonance around the theme of remembrance and adolescence.
The unbreakable links between the hamlet of Esparon and the different transitions of four generations unfold in scenes at the river, in the forest or on the terrace of the holiday home and in an original film taken from family archives.
This new project, entirely designed and realized for Assas Castle by an artist regularly published and exhibited in New York, affirms our community’s commitment to a culture that is sensitive, inclusive and accessible to all.
The portraits of his two sons, staged but with naturalness, explore the inner quest of adolescence. His work is doubly influenced by film conventions, notably by the dramatic effects of lighting, and by the soft and peaceful light that radiates from Dutch painting, and in particular Vermeer’s mysterious domestic portraits. The artist has always used light. It began its series with the large 4x5 format, then alternately used the first full frame digital cameras, the Canon 5D.
It is notorious that most photographers approach adolescence from the angle of torment, despair, or even a nihilistic perception of the world. However, if she admires Nan Goldin’s diary about the family of outcasts she created, or Larry Clark’s hard and poignant portraits of Tulsa’s marginalized youth, she chooses a different point of view. Neither sensationalism nor despair, but a more serene, more peaceful and introspective vision of the adolescent journey. In this sense, she is more in the line of Harry Callahan, carrying a sweet and loving look at his wife Eleanor, or Nicholas Nixon portraying the four Brown sisters every year.
You can discover this exhibition during a free visit or by joining a guided tour on Saturday at 4:30 pm, or on Sunday at 11 am or at 3 pm. Martine Fougeron will be there on Saturday 16 at 3pm.