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11.1. - 27.2.2005
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In 1960, when the 25-year-old Marc Garanger took identity photos in Algeria in order of the French state, he could not image how actual and important his "sachlich" and respectfully arranged works would be later, 43 years after the end of the colonial period. The actuality of the series of portraits, shown in the Photographic Centre Nykyaika, is basically rooted in the unsolved relationship of the enlightened Modernism with the Exotic and the Oriental. The political dimensions of that historic relationship are virulent in many aspects at the beginning of the 21st century. After several attempts, in August 2004, invited by the Algerian State, Marc Garanger was able to revisit the places and villages in Algeria, which he had photographed as a soldier in 1960. He has started to search for the lost and open ends in his personal history and to reconnected them within his new situation. Documents of his new search-for-traces are parts of the exhibition. But the personal story of the photographer is only one aspect of the presentation. The glance/viewpoint, visible in Marc Garangers early works is to be seen in the long tradition of European Looking, which, driven by the values of Enlightenment, was – and still is - encouraged to bring all hidden to the light, to unveil the concealed and to disenchant the veiled. This glance-on-the-world and its cultures defined as objective and scientific, at the same time has given direction and perspective along which the world has been organised and ruled. Internal of this view-field, the organising glance has established the structures of power and ranking, relations and values.
What is the manifest of that glance? In Marc Garangers photographs, we see women, who stand the glance of the soldier-like viewer and, at the same time, in dignity try to represent their own culture. The identifying glance of the European viewer is, proudly and in self-confidence, reflected by the unveiled women, yes, one could follow the idea that they identify the action of the photographer in the same way as he identifies his model. A critical case in which the medium tries to fix an established relationship of power, but in the same moment it visibly failed to do so. In this wreck/break down, lies the fascination of the images and it is the artists achievement to accept the fail. The colonial period in Algeria ended in 1962. We regard the presentation of Marc Garangers ´Algerian Women` as an extension to, and in interaction with, the exhibition Bettina Flitner ´European Women`, which is on display in the Tampere Art Museum at the same time. It shows, that women in all regions and cultures identify themselves with their culture and work hard to keep and to develop it. Additional material on this theme: Assia Djebar, La femme sans sepulture & Le Monde newspaper, 28.10.2004. Marc Garanger lives and works in Paris as an independent journalist. See his CV.
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Open Tuesday-Thursday 12-18, Saturday-Sunday 12-16.
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