Beyond the Walls: Beaugency, Saint-Etienne Church
6 October to 4 November 2012

 

The artist Michel François presents his work with the singular perspective of the image as shown in a selection of posters and videos.

 

This exhibition is organised by Valimage following a proposition from the CCC, and inaugurated the opening of the ‘Rencontres des Arts de l’Image’ in the town of Beaugency. This provided the opportunity to re-launch a selection of 45 piles of posters by Michel François which were produced in 2011 for his retrospective at the CCC, and at the same time to publish a new one. The artist’s videos will be shown alongside these posters,.

 

Since 1994, Michel François has been creating a new large format (120 x 180 cm) poster for each exhibition based on his photographs. Multiple copies of these posters are printed and given away free to visitors.

 

Be they in photographic or video form, the images bear witness to the different ways they are made, from the photo taken in the heat of the moment with a composition which is finely orchestrated, an accidental detail breaking out of the realistic as in documentary work… The framing of his photographs, which can be either constructed or intuitive and spontaneous, contribute to a specific relationship with space, light and the body.  In image after image, Michel François constructs ‘an inventory of visible things’, a collection where the plasticity of visible things reveals itself, of the world as an extension the workshop of the sculptor, which is his principal role.

 

In this new exhibition, Michel François creates a new type of dialogue between his images. The posters and videos have been redistributed in the Saint-Étienne Church, Beaugency and are can be seen here.  Visitors are asked to reinvest the images by adding to them, and to leave with one of them. This is done in line with the artist’s philosophy where the work is linked with the concept of exchange and circulation.

 

A collaboration between Valimage – Beaugency & CCC – Tours
In partnership with Beaugency Cultural Department