As part of the Enchanted Real, Month of Photography in Paris, November 2012
The Maison d'Art Bernard Anthonioz in Nogent-sur-Marne and the gallery Les filles du calvaire have joined forces to take an exceptional look at the work of Corinne Mercadier at a pivotal moment in her career. Indeed, at the very moment when a first retrospective was being held in France from 2006 to 2012, and culminated in a substantial monograph published by Editions Filigranes, Corinne Mercadier's language had to change radically, confronted with the disappearance of the techniques she had used until then and which determined a specific photographic rendering. In fact, Solo and Black Screen, two new series presented at the gallery as part of the Month of Photography's Réel Ré-enchanté, are distinguished from the artist's previous works by the transition from a very particular practice - a complex double shot with the Polaroid SX70 - to digital photography.
Devant un champ obscur is the title proposed by the artist for his exhibition at the gallery Les filles du calvaire of two new series carried out in parallel, Solo and Black Screen, and the book published on this occasion by Editions Filigranes. As we have noted, these series differ from the artist's previous works in that they use digital photography and abandon the material and effects of Polaroid. However, in doing so, these new images are part of the continuity of the work: in Solo we find the dark skies (present since Landscapes, 1992), the staging, the enigmatic characters and the thrown objects (Once and no more, 2002 and Long Distance, 2007), while in Black Screen the radiant light of the Glasstypes of 1999, photographs of objects painted on glass, reappears.