Artlog

“Contemporary Ruins” is a new photographic series by the French Photography team of Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre. This project is based on a series of photographs that show what Yves and Romain call, “An urban archeology… focusing on historic buildings in a state of vanishing.”

This series of photographs proposes to the spectators a sublimated vision of these abandoned constructions and give them a statute work of art, like a melancholic person, and they are deeply magic.

Yves and Romain work around urban archaeology and they photograph the contemporary ruins of the buildings in a state of transition before rehabilitation or demolition. Since 2001, the pair has been interested in the abandoned buildings: undergrounds, old industries and deserted urban areas. With the wire of their explorations, they became increasingly sensitive to the scarcity and the singularity of the historical buildings and evolved together to a style, a manner of photographing, and a common vision. The condition of the cities, the “genocide architectural”, pushed them to continue their investigations in France, Belgium, England, Spain, Italy, and more recently in Germany and the United States.

For them, it is initially a question of keeping small traces of these often ignored buildings, always a part of the social context and history. Their inspiration is simple, “Since some years, perpetual demolitions led us to make pictures, a way to keep a little bit of this vanishing history.” They feel that by photographing the state of ruin, it can be the final stage, a symbolic system, of the life of these masonries. The photographs represent, in their eyes, a true sublimation of the structure. And to look at them one last time is an incentive.

Yves and Romain became interested in old, abandoned buildings during 2001 while each of them pursued their own personal projects: one focused on underground, old industries and the other on deserted urban areas. They both started photography as a way of conserving a little bit of this vanishing history. They decided to work in a pair, instead of individually due to the fact that they work with large scale photography and the need for a quicker process was obvious to them. Besides that fact, by working in two’s the artists feel that one can pick up where the other left off. It allows for more effectiveness and much less stress. While one is preparing the room, the other is referencing the marks for the point of view. Although, they sometimes disagree on which sites to photograph, but with discussion met in unison, there are no regrets. And while other photographers who work with an assistant, Yves and Romain feel that they are equally assisting each other.

There are, however, no human figures in any of their prints. The reason in this is simple: ruins that one visits are empty, and even if very seldom does one come across a squatter, the ruins essentially remain uninhibited. They think that it could be interesting to show the way in which people live around these buildings, the way in which they integrate into the city, but in the majority of the situations, it is that there is simply a large world that does not exist in or around the ruins. After they met, they began a systematic inspection of abandoned buildings in the area around Paris. Visiting these places made them more sensitive to the rarity and uniqueness of historic, dying buildings that are sadly neglected and, often, being threatened. Through this practice, they evolved a way to photograph a common vision.

After honing their vision, Yves and Romain expanded their project to include Belgium, Italy, Germany, America and even Japan. One subject that attracted their attention more than any other was the city of Detroit. These images became the basis of their first exhibition.

Since then, they kept working within Detroit while also working on Eastern Germany’s industrial vestiges, the old movie theaters of America, and several other subjects also tied to contemporary ruins and urban archeology.

The pair work fast to capture as much as they can of these reliques before they all disappear. And when asked, “What, for you, is a successful photograph?” the pair merely answered, “A successful photograph is a photograph which generates an interest, an emotion to share with its subject alone. It is finally so easy to take a photograph that the technical realization must be absolutely irreproachable and must put forward the selected subject. Like everyone certainly, one still seeks to really know what is a successful photograph.”

Being young artists with a strong talent and keen eye (Yves Marchand was born in 1981 ; Romain Meffre was born in 1987) the two are sure to have a long and prosperous career ahead of them.

Their careers as Professional Photographers started six years ago. On their first trip to Detroit, the result was their first exhibition two years ago which they titled “The ruins of Detroit”. It was relatively successful and so they decided to begin to expand their horizons to other various projects. Their investigations led them to France, Belgium, England, Spain, Italy, and more recently to Germany and the American continent. They traveled around the world photographing ruins and have had two more exhibitions. The first was in the United States where the pair photographed ruins in Detroit, Michigan, and the other was mainly the ruins of Industrial Vestiges in Eastern Europe.

Their work has been widely published in some of the most influential photography magazines in the industry such as Num√ɬ©ro, Le Monde (France), Terra Economica, Images Magazine (USA), Sync Russia (Russia), D’Architectures (France), Elegy, Europa Nostra (Europe), and Defrag Mag. They have also participated in exhibitions like Mai’tallurgie Art Festival, Charleroi (May 2008), “Movie Theaters, les palais oubli√ɬ©s du cinema”, Na√ɬßo Gallery, Paris 12√ɬ®me (February-March 2008), Court-Circuit Art Festival, Nantes (October 2007), “Industria, ruines industrielles” Galerie Kennory Kim, Paris 3√ɬ®me (September 2007), Laboratoire N√ɬ©gatif+, Paris 10√ɬ®me (Spring 2007), and “Les fabuleuses ruines de Detroit”, Galerie Kennory Kim, Paris 3√ɬ®me (June 2006).