VERNACULAR!
The three series presented are from a collection of 10,000 photos compiled over a period of more than 25 years. One of their distinguishing characteristics is the repetition of a detail, which creates a sense of strangeness that questions the source of my feelings. The body of work tells stories to those who know how to listen to them. TeddyBär features photographs taken in Germany between the end of the First World War and the late 1960s. Anonymous people pose alongside actors dressed up as placid or menacing polar bears, travelling across time. The history of Germany files past. BlackFace uses photographs of whites who painted their faces black for minstrel shows or private parties to question how the view of Afro-Americans changed between 1880 and the late 1960s. Lastly, Predator brings together pictures by amateur photographers from around the world (1920-1970) with one thing in common: the shadow of the photographer in a hat is in the image. Repetition creates the subject: the same man is everywhere, all the time, threatening.
Jean-Marie Donat Publications: 'BlackFace', 'TeddyBär', 'Predator', éditions Innocences.net, 2015.
Exhibition venue: Chapelle de la Charité.
Jean-Marie Donat has worked in publishing for thirty years. He contributed to the Italian review 'Frigidaire' at the beginning of the 1980s, was the studio manager and artistic director of Sarbacane Design for fifteen years, and participated in 2003 in launching Éditions Sarbacane. With Alexandre Mestcherinoff, he created the Patate Records label, specialising in republishing works by Jamaican artists. He now manages his own publishing company, AllRight. The 2015 Rencontres d’Arles will be an occasion for him to launch Innocences.net, a 2.0 publishing house dedicated to images of all kinds. Donat is also an informed collector of photographs, which he has been gathering, for more than twenty-five years, during his journeys in Europe and the United States. The collection revolves around a powerful idea, that of providing a singular interpretation of the century. BORN IN 1962 IN PARIS, FRANCE.
LIVES AND WORKS IN PARIS, FRANCE.
THREE SERIES FROM THE JEAN-MARIE DONAT COLLECTION09
www.Innocences.net
