Alain Delorme
People carrying piles that are about 20 times their own size. Like they are swallowed up by them. Those impressive images from China by Alain Delorme are being shown in an exhibition in Berlin and France at the moment. “My pictures should not tell only about China though, but about consumer society in general via the “made in China”, all these identical and interchangeable objects produced in huge quantities.” A must see if you around those places!
| Alain, where does the idea for this serie Totems comes from? I got this idea during my first art residency in Shanghai. A few days after my arrival, I’ve had a feeling of vertigo, a sort of nausea due to the constant effervescence of the city and its permanent stimulation of all senses. This gave me the idea to create a series about accumulation. I’ve also had the feeling of a China oscillating between the dazzling modernity of its towers and the simplicity of a part of its population in the streets. The impressive loads of the migrants appear to me as the perfect illustration of both phenomena.I called them “Totems” for their verticality, which echoes the height of the skyscrapers in my photos. Also, the totems are usually considered like special symbols with spiritual significance: here they can illustrate the object’s worship by our consumer society… object which is often “made in China”. Are the images showing reality? |
the reality as well of the expansion of Shanghai, with all these skyscrapers rising up. It is some kind of augmented reality though: you do see these workers carrying their impressive loads throughout the city. I just exaggerated the piles to draw the attention to them, while still trying to remain believable. There are also some incoherent details left on purpose, to encourage questioning on what is true or not. For instance, one of the workers drives with flowers in front of his eyes. How could he do that in real life?
Who long it took to take all the images? What´s the message of this serie? |
We all have in mind pictures of crowds, working in huge factories for instance. I wanted therefore to focus on the individual instead. Similarly, we usually see Shanghai as the New York City of China. It is also the most capitalist city of this country, where the gap between the rich and the poor is huge. For once the photos do not star the skyscrapers but the migrants, who are running across the city with their bizarre burdens. For me they are even more impressive.China was also a very interesting example, as it is a country constantly reinventing itself, a Communist country becoming the factory of the world, and now the new El Dorado of the market economy. My pictures should not tell only about China though, but about consumer society in general via the “made in China”, all these identical and interchangeable objects produced in huge quantities. The totems are in this way highly symbolical: the migrant seems at first almost like a hero for being able to carry such impressive piles. But soon we rather have the feeling that the objects almost swallow him, that he’s submerged by the multiplication of the same object… just like the consumer? |
From 18 november to 28 january 2012
Solo Show / Totems, FTC.Berlin gallery, Lindenstr.35, 10969 Berlin, Germany.
From 10 december 2011 to 14 january 2012
Collective Exhibition / Totems “Paris Forever”, Magda Danysz gallery, 78 rue Amelot, 75011 Paris, France.
www.alaindelorme.com
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