Photomatons, 1995-1997 by Mathieu Pernot (August 5, 2010) 
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Categories / Conceptual Photography / Documentary Portraiture / / Click here to open comments section, click again when done to close / 1 Comment
Introduction by Marta Daho
This project, selected by Bite Magazine, gives a retrospective view of Mathieu Pernot’s work over the past fifteen years. It is devoted to analyze the relationship between the individual and the power exerted by different social institutions. The artist uses the photographic medium at the same time that he questions its normative effects. Pernot is particularly keen on the coercing forces that subject the individual imposing a certain order. What is particularly interesting is that his work does not only offer an état de lieux but each project could also seen as a piece of active resistance. Pernot’s opposition is silent, far from touching on the spectacular. It is solid and advances progressively. In any age, the conditions under which the photographic medium operates implicitly regulate different ways of thinking and feeling on the viewer. In their turn, we know too that this will have an effect on the way the viewer will interact with those people and communities represented. In this case, Pernot’s early piece Photomatons proposes us visual exercise of dislocation that brings forth how certain uses of photography have conditioned our vision of certain communities like the gypsies.
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Our poll "A photo essay always needs a great written story" closed. 267 people voted, 28% agrees, 72% disagrees. 233 people answered our follow-up question "Are you a photographer?" 82% indicated they are, 18% said no. Initially, negative answers to question #1 were almost 100% as was the pecentage of photographers among respondants. Then, when the level of non-photographers started to rise, the percentage of people indicating good text is always essential started to rise too. This seems to indicate that non-photographers think that adding good text to your photo essays is essential. In my opinion: if you want non-photographers to dig your work, you know what to do...
The Photomatons series was created between 1995 and 1997 with gypsy children.
The rigor of the set-up – the fixed distance, uniformity of light and background and the way these bodies are strained resonates photographic identification procedures and questions the vision that we usually have on these communities.
The children’s faces seems to resist this normative and uniform approach, stating the uniqueness of their personality and how they appear in a photograph.
Mathieu Pernot (1970) lives and works in Paris, France.
Click weblink mathieupernot.com or browse our archives
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