Gallery.Photographer.ru in cooperation with the Cultural Centre of France is pleased to present the first exhibition of Antoine d’Agata in Moscow — a renowned French photographer of MAGNUM PHOTOS. It includes a selection of b&w and colour photographs from his main series/books: «Situations», «Stigma», «Insomnia», «Vortex», and «Mala Noche».
Sensually brutal, provoking in us raw and disturbing emotions, his works may shock some of us but not those who are tired of constraints, limitations and conformism. For them Antoine d’Agata is visually innovative and extremely challenging.
Henri Cartier-Bresson affirmed that a photographer should be an invisible outsider, an indifferent observer, whereas Robert Capa stated that he could approach the reality as close as possible to experience the fear to it. Antoine d’Agata goes further and declares the total involvement of an artist into the photographed life.
The night, the sex, the wandering as well as the unconsciousness, the desire and the fear are the essential elements and constituents of Antoine D’Agata’s photography . He is «in constant search to grasp the reality», he affirms, but never judges, or imposes moral position and that is why he is to expose himself to common and even extreme experiences.
«I try to distance myself from a certain type of documentary photography that often avails itself of symbols that are too easy to read and assimilate in order to present a complex reality in a balance that is endlessly discussed over and over between photography as an instrument of documentation and photography as being completely subjective. It isn’t the eye that the photographer poses on the world that interests me but his most intimate relationship with that world.»
Biography
Born in Marseilles in 1961, Antoine d’Agata left France in 1983 and remained overseas for the next ten years. Finding himself in New York in 1990, he pursued an interest in photography by taking courses at the International Center of Photography, where his teachers included Larry Clark and Nan Goldin.
During his time in New York, in 1991—92, D’Agata worked as an intern in the editorial department of Magnum, but despite his experiences and training in the US, after his return to France in 1993 he took a four-year break from photography. His first books of photographs, De Mala Muerte and Mala Noche, were published in 1998, and the following year Galerie Vu began distributing his work. In 2001 he published Hometown, and won the Niépce Prize for young photographers. He continued to publish regularly: Vortex and Insomnia appeared in 2003, accompanying his exhibition 1001 Nuits, which opened in Paris in September; Stigma was published in 2004, and Manifeste in 2005.
In 2004 D’Agata joined Magnum Photos and in the same year, shot his first short film, Le Ventre du Monde; this experiment led to his long feature film Aka Ana, shot in 2006 in Tokyo.
Since 2005 Antoine d’Agata has had no settled place of residence but has worked around the world.
Awards
2004 The Higashikawa Overseas Prize, Japan
2001 Prix Niepce, France
1999 Forscher Fellowship Award, New-York, USA
1999 Bourse Villa Médicis, Hors les murs, France
1994 First Prize, Festival des Jeunes Créateurs, Paris, France
Books
2007 Situations, Rat Hole, Japan
2005 Manifeste, Le Point du Jour Editeur, France
2005 Psychogéographie, Le Point du Jour Editeur, France
2004 La Ville sans Nom, Le Point du Jour Editeur, France
2004 Stigma, Images en Manoeuvre, France
2003 Insomnia, Images en Manoeuvre, France
2003 Vortex, Éditions Atlantica, France
2001 Hometown, Le Point du Jour Editeur, France
2001 Antoine d′Agata, Centro de Estudios Fotograficos, Spain
1998 Mala Noche, En Vue, France
1998 De Mala Muerte, Le Point du Jour Editeur, France
Selected exhibitions
2007: Situations — Rat Hole Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
2006: Vortex — Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo, Japan
2004: 1001 Nuits — FOAM, Amsterdam, Netherlands; Forum für Zeitgenössische
Fotografie, Köln, Germany
2004: Divinus Deus — Galerie Vu, Paris, France; Rencontres Internationales
de la Photographie, Arles, France
2002: Face to Face — Psychogéographie, Ö.Ö.— Landesmuseum, Linz, Austria; Fotohof
Gallery, Salzburg, Austria
2001: Prix Niepce — Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, France
2001: Photographies 1991—2001 — Centre Atlantique de la Photographie, Brest, France
2000: Untitled — Galerie Vu, Paris, France
1999/00: Mala Noche — Circulo de Bellas Artes, Madrid, Spain;
Encontros da Imagem, Braga, Portugal
1998: De Mala Muerte — La Comédie du Regard, Montpellier, France; A La Librairie, Paris,
France
The bank Societe Generale Vostok is the major partner of the Cultural Centre of France.
The show is also supported by media partner: VASH DOSOUG magazine and Russian Zoom.
Technical support by FOTOLAB. Wining by Alkomag.ru.