An exhibition curated by Sophie Berrebi
Documentary Evidence brings together five artists from different generations, whose works propose a particular view in the context of contemporary photography. Revolving around the manipulation of archival materials, the use of found photographs and printed sources, or working from pre-established documentary formats, the photographs and videos included in the show present a kind of descriptive and informative straight photography without any aestheticising effects. Birrell’s documentary videos, photographs by Leykauf and Williams, and montages by Oppenheim and Moulène work as factual proofs or “documentary evidences”.
This first reading can, however be replaced by another one. Seemingly transparent photography conceals as much as it reveals and the situatin of the works in the show is an invitation to dismantle the image’s mechanisms. In recalling earlier forms which similarly emphasized the image’s ambivalence - surrealist photography, German New Objectivity, conceptual art documentation, or Documentary Style as it was defined by Walker Evans - the works by Birrell, Leykauf, Moulène, Oppenheim and Williams question the relations between readability and visibility, between the document and the work of art.
In underlining the complex relations between representation, circuits of production, circulation and conservation of the photographic document, and behind the impression of a raw reality and the supposed truthfulness of the documentary form, “Documentary Evidence” acknowledges the evidence as much as the ambivalence of the photograph.
Ross Birrell, (b.1969, Glasgow) graduated from Glasgow University and lives and works in Glasgow. Part of his ongoing site-specific project, Envoy was recently showed at Berlin’ Burö Friedrich, at the Ellen de Bruijne gallery in Amsterdam, and at the Liste 2003 in Basel.
Alexandra Leykauf (b. Nuremberg, 1976) lives and works in Amsterdam. She is a Resident Artist at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam and she previously studied at the Ritveld Akademie. Her work was shown in 2004 at the Barbara Wien gallery in Berlin.
Jean-Luc Moulène (b. Reims, 1955), lives and works in Paris. He took part in the latest Venice Biennale (in Gabriel Orozco’s exhibition The Everyday Altered). His photographs were recently exhibited in Paris, Toulouse and Berlin (Products of Palestine), and at the Centre d’Art Contemporain in Geneva.
Lisa Oppenheim (b. New York, 1975) is an artist living and working in New York City and Amsterdam, where she is a Resident Artist at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten. Her work in film, video and photography has been exhibited most recently at Socrates Sculpture Park and Jessica Murray Gallery in New York City, Western Front Gallery in Vancouver, and Catherine Clark Gallery in San Francisco.
Christopher Williams was born in Los Angeles (1956) where he lives and works. His recent solo shows took place at the Galerie Gisela Capitain in Köln, the David Zwirner gallery in New York and the Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver. His work is currently included in the collective exhibition Before the End, at the Consortium in Dijon.