WAIT AND SEE, 1998/2010>onwards

Absence and essence of representation. An aesthetical passage of time recorded on photographic papers.

The Swiss team of photographic artists, f&d cartier, use black and white photosensitive paper and light – two fundamentals of photography – as the essential elements of their process, establishing a unique concept for each site-specific installation. This a camera-less gesture exemplifies the minimalist tendencies of these photographers; utilizing their vast collection of unexposed photographic papers (550 sorts ranging from 1880 to 1990) the artists expose them directly to the available light in each particular exhibition space. Since 1998 they have researched the nature and history of the papers of their archive and use this knowledge to create their installations. Once the installation is unveiled, the chromatic transformation of the b/w paper begins in a subtle interplay with the surrounding space. According to its composition and the nature of its contact with light, the flat surfaces develop infinite random colour, as well as unexpected patterns and stains over time and eventually even become three-dimensional objects. To perceive the progressive saturation of the paper, the spectator is asked to be patient and to remain still for a few moments to observe a latent process, the meaning of which derives from the very act of being seen and continues over the following hours, days and weeks, never stopping completely but becoming slower over the months, years and decades. The colours developed over time, stay, becoming more and more dense, but never turn black. Through this project, f&d cartier create a mechanism that reveals a passing moment, the traces of which remain visible. Experience and memory are recorded as non-representational and camera less abstract aesthetical nuances and as living sculpture on the wall.

MONOGRAPH WAIT AND SEE Ffotogallery Cardiff ISBN 9781872771939

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VENI ETIAM

40 Albumen glass plates 1880-90.

« Found objects » while artist in residency at the Swiss Institute of Roma in Venice, autumn 2008. Glass plates of chandeliers, mirrors, furniture, completed by Venetian artisan and photographer of the period, catalogue or archive.

Reinterpretation thanks to contemporary technologies. Adjunction/deduction of light colour’s tonality – inducing frescoes & paintings of the Venetian’s school as well as the actual atmosphere of the City

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ROSES Edition Niggli, 2006 ISBN 13: 978-3-7212-0600-5

The Photogram in the Work of Françoise and Daniel Cartier

Point of encounter – Point of departure

Sylvie Henguely

Ten years ago, in the mid-1990s, Françoise and Daniel Cartier decided to merge their artistic paths. How did the plastic-artist and the photographer come to this decision? How did they bring about their artistic convergence? So many questions to which they can offer little more than a few murmurs and bouts of crystalline laughter, and indeed their works, mutinous and opinionated, make such questions seem ethereal, perhaps a little playful by comparison with more relevant questions, about, say... the technique of the photogram. This art form, which they have perfected, lends their work a radical immateriality. Their photographs retain only the most summary traces of the objects they represent: a skeleton, a fleeting presence, a trace of light, an inversion, a negative.

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THE HOURS _LES HEURES, nov - dec 2012

Concept

Examining the indispensable prerequisites for photography - light and photosensitive paper -

« LES HEURES » _the hours_ evokes the irrevocable disappearing of analog photography, at the digital turning point.

For this project, we have been collecting since two years all kinds of silver gelatin old photo sensible papers, all brands and formats, dating from 1860 to 1980, as well as some old cameras.

shooting

We replace the ordinarily plastic negatives by silver gelatin papers at the back of the cameras, taking some pictures of the sky, out of our window. While making exposure time of 24 hours to 15 days, the sun’s journey inscribes its curve right onto the paper negatives.

After exposure time, we take out the paper negatives.

Not fixed, they will carry on their chromatic evolution, slowly disappearing.

edition

The paper negatives _as soon as taken out from the cameras_ are scanned and edited in order to keep the memory of this instant

presentation

Memory paper negatives are blown up _Ultra Violet inkjet prints 100x70cm on silk paper 45gr/m2_ Confronted to the originals _silver gelatin papers- formats 4x6cm to 9x11cm_

Which will disappear when exposed to the ambient light