For fifteen years, Philippe Chancel has been exploring sensitive sites on our planet, examining the world and observing the most alarming symptoms of its decline. To work in this way does not correspond to any genre identified in photographic practice. This is why DATAZONE is an invention that manages to encompass the most tangible signs of the catastrophe foretold: traumatic ecology, chaotic deindustrialization, the toxic setbacks of modernization. From China to the USA, Africa to Europe, the whole world is screaming out at us. And there's no refuge in sight.
Rather than a manifesto, the 14 sites photographed evoke an epic worthy of Cervantes' Don Quixote. The struggle against the absurd forms a legendary fresco: our own. What can images do when information is no longer an option? It is this "too late" that forms the basis of DATAZONE, and of the future of the ruins it deals with. Globalization is a sunless civilization, in which people survive while waiting for the apocalypse, with political regimes depriving them of any recourse.
Philippe Chancel is a classic photographer, and what he constructs confirms that the modern world has not lived up to its promises. It is by assembling images that bear witness to a profound sensitivity to the world that a great narrative can be built. The advance towards the precipice contains the euphoric attempt at a rebound. The beauty of the images seems derisory, but aesthetics are all that's left to regain a taste for life. The sick beauty of our times gives birth to DATAZONE.
The exhibition is an invitation to vertigo and, hopefully, to regaining one's footing. Now let's imagine that we come from an ancient era and DATAZONE shows our future: we could thank the photographer for warning us, and change the course of history.
But we can't.
Until now.
Michel Poivert
born in 1959 in Issy les Moulineaux, lives and works in Paris, France.
For over twenty years, Philippe Chancel has been pursuing a photographic experiment at the intersection of art, documentary and journalism. Introduced to photography at an early age, trained in economics (Nanterre University) and journalism (CFPJ, Paris), he has exhibited at the Barbican Centre in London, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, C/O Berlin, the Open Eye Society Foundation in New York, the 53rd Venice Biennale, and the Multimedia Art Museum in Moscow.
His DATAZONE project, shown and published in part in France and abroad, is exhibited in its entirety for the first time at Rencontres d'Arles 2019.
www.philippechancel.com
Texts by Michel Poivert and Philippe Chancel
English text, translated by Jeremy Harrison
26 x 32 cm, 424 pages
Hardcover
ISBN: 979-10-95822-06-6, June 2019
ARTE Journal, "Philippe Chancel à Arles", by R. Bonnet, 17.07.19
France Inter, Regardez Voir, "Philippe Chancel, voyage dans un monde sous tension", 20.07.19
L'Obs, "Face aux catastrophes annoncées, la photographie peut-elle encore nous faire réagir ?", by Pierre Haski, 13.07.19
France Culture, L'invité culture, Philippe Chancel et Marina Gadonneix, 11.07.19
La Libre, "Datazone, Le monde hurle à nos yeux", by J-M. Bodson, 10.07.19
Aesthetica, "Rencontres d'Arles: Exploring Geopolitics", June/July 2019
ARTE, Metropolis, "Les Rencontres d'Arles", by C. Wittrock, 04.07.19
France Info, "Photographie : avec Datazone, Philippe Chancel alerte sur les dérives du monde", by A. Chépeau, 02.07.19
L'express, Rencontres d'Arles au délà du réel, by J. Bordier, 17.07.19
Polka Magazine 's column "Les photos de la semaine" on France Info, 07.07.19
Beaux-Art Magazine, "Arles, De si belles Rencontres", by E. Lequeux and N. Nataf, July 2019
Grazia, "La zone et le territoire", by L. Martin, 07.07.19
The Art Newspaper, "Le monde selon Philippe Chancel et Mohammed Bourouissa aux Rencontres d'Arles", by B. MArcelis, 05.07.19
art press, LES RENCONTRES DE LA PHOTOGRAPHIE, 50 ANS 50 EXPOS, by M. Bernard, 12.07.19
Libération, "Datazone, un monde épars", by G. Renaud, 06 et 07.07.19
AMA - Art Media Agency, Discussion with Philippe Chancel, July 2019
For all images: Philippe Chancel, Datazone. © Philippe Chancel / Galerie Melanie Rio Fluency.
Philippe Chancel's portrait is by Pierre Marsaut, 2019.