The photographer Baptiste Rabichon inaugurated the PICTO LAB/ EXPERIMENTING WITH PHOTOS residency, designed to support artists in their creative research involving original, experimental and unusual know-how or processes. The Picto Lab residency aims to support a creative and research dynamic that combines the materiality of the image, primitive photographic practices and the more technical issues associated with images. Each year, the residency welcomes an artist for three months during which they are provided with the resources required to carry out their creative project. Housed at the Cité Internationale des Arts, the artist benefits from the production infrastructure of the PICTO laboratories and the support of other organisations associated with the project.
On Wednesday 29th September 2021, Baptiste Rabichon returned to the La Comète bookshop to talk about this experience, accompanied by the colour printer Fred Jourda, who worked with him throughout the residency. He presented his plural and striking project “20th Century”, including the series “Manhattan Papers”, which will be collated in the form of a publication (80 pages in 100 copies, accompanied by a signed and numbered print).
“”20th Century”, firstly echoes one of the three photographic series that make up this exhibition, respectively entitled Manhattan Papers, Lost Levels and 20th Century.
20th century is in reference to the themes explored; abstract painting, the discovery of cave art by the public, notably with Lascaux and Chauvet, the city of New York and its image, the beginnings of digital technology and virtuality through the world of video games in the 1990s…
The 20th century also in some of the tools, techniques and media used; analogue photography and printing, colour reversal film, photograms, chemigrams, 8 and 16-bit video games…”
