Jerome Albertini 

Woman study #1 

Woman study #1

About the artist

Born and raised in France, fed at the nascent Society of the Spectacle’s bosom, extreme ideology of reversal of values he will have to deal with without eroding himself, Jerome Albertini follows a self taught route of artistic experiments that will lead him to emigrate to the USA in 1990.There he learns photography and its enforcement as a tool of mass marketing and propaganda for the predominant consumption dogma. Follows then a noticeable career as a portrait photographer in the Entertainment industry, and mainly Hip Hop music.
In 2008, aware of this state of cognitive dissonance that nevertheless keeps him on his toes, he cuts short all collaboration with the pervading mercantilism to discover the American working poor’s social condition, becoming a farm worker apprentice in a CSA organic farm. To summarize this experience we’ll say that the awareness and study of the laws of Nature that governs pastoral life helped him reestablish within the current of continuous perception that his previous life had tried in vain to repress.
In 2011, he revisits his photographic past to experiment one last time with figurative photography, carrying out a project called “ France as it goes…” , followed in 2013 by another, “ studies on French citizenry in urban situation in Paris “.
In 2014, he releases himself from the photographic medium by starting up a methodical work he calls “Deconstruction of the figurative in Contemporary Photography”.

Interview

what can you tell us about your approach on image Deconstruction  ?
It’s a matter of :
1-    tackling a theory of visual analysis positing that an image has no stable reference.
2-    questioning our assumptions about the ability of images to efficiently encompass Reality.
3-    going beyond the limited, easily manipulated, immediate sensory Perception of Reality, to open the doors of augmented Perception

By forcing entry into the image, by exposing its inner digital fabric, by revealing to the eye its hidden structural Matrix, deconstructing what appears to be toward what truly is, i commit to a deliberate task of deprogramming, demystification, deconstruction of my own Perception, pushing me to go further and beyond visual appearances, cultural conformisms and illusions conditioning my own discernment of Reality, my own definition of Truth…… I appropriate the image to push the viewer to question his own Perception, and to a certain extent, its political scope.
Indeed for me, in a world where we are undermined, entertained from the cradle to the grave that we like it or not, our ability to rework the image and the dialogue is the key to psychological and political balance.

Your images do often appear quite abstract. Can you explain to us the creative process behind your work ?
I start from a digital photograph, one of my own or one that I can get from that gigantic picture library that we call the Internet and I play with it in image treatment software. Each images reacting quite randomly depending on their color index and lighting composition, I never really know in advance where I will end up so I decide creatively as I go along. Some images can be quite fast to achieve and others can take me a long time. The software do also participate actively in some sort of auto creative process so there is an element of surprise that is always at play, fortunately.
For me, the final image is achieved when it looks as figuratively arresting from afar as it is abstractly mesmerizing from up close.
My favorite subjects are anti-governmental riots, eternal symbols of our quest toward Utopia, and scenes of the immanent Nature.
I do give myself all latitudes to rest my mind on less ‘concerned’ subjects, as is the case here. A stoic I am and remain, but to some kind of lightness of being, occasionally reached, I do aspire.

 What did trigger your Deconstruction approach ?
After allowing myself to get lost for so long in the egocentric meanders of the figurative image’s propaganda that the Society of the Spectacle relentlessly dictates to sustain itself, I came back to the basics, to sociological science, cognitive science, human behavioral science, to the study of Man, as I am one to know myself. I returned to that primal need to comprehend the world I belong to in more subtle ways, try and opening those famous doors of Perception I tend to keep unconsciously closed. Also, the 2008 systemic crisis I experienced within the US opened my eyes to the imperative need to understand the precise Reality structure of my surroundings, of this environment I live in where I must emancipate myself, when all is said and done. So in the process, i ended up thirsting for the most of Truth I could get. In a way, without being aware of it, I chose to swallow the red pill……

Finally, and simultaneously, my “image studies” can build up to an encyclopedic compendium of contemporary visual art culture that will apply to that shift from the figurative Art to abstract Art in Photography.

Limited edition - numbered and signed certificate



Selected shows and awards

Construction-Deconstruction, group show, Acte 2 galerie, Paris 2014.
Hip Hop Immortals, group show, Proud Camden Gallery, London, 2003
The Art of Photography, group show, Le Book, New York, 1999.
Young Guns, group show, Art Directors Club, New York, 1998.
Yves Saint Laurent, 40 years of création, group show, International Festival of Fashion Photography, New York,1997.

Selected publications

Hip hop immortals,The Remix, 2003, Thunder’s Mouth press.
Hip Hop Immortals,Volume One, 2002 Immortals Brand.
Yves Saint laurent,40 years of création, 1998 DAP.
Visionaire fashion’s 2000
Louis Vuitton Monogram Visionaire, numéro 18, 1996 edition.

Featured links

Details

& order

Jerome Albertini 
Woman study #1

2014

Technical information

Pigment print on Hahnemühle Silk Baryta paper - limited edition, numbered and signed certificate. Framed on request.

Dimensions

51 x 80 cm, Edition of 50
OUT OF STOCK




By the same artist

Jerome Albertini


By the same curator

HOLI MAY