Jean-Michel Crapanzano

Invisible Empire: Disconnected Mind

Jean-Michel Crapanzano (Frankreich /Niederlande) erforscht die Grenzen zwischen Propaganda und visueller Kunst. Vor dem Zeitalter von Photoshop und Tabloid Magazinen waren Veränderungen von Bildern für den Verkauf einer Schlagzeile und der Gebrauch von gefälschter Fotografie übliche Strategien, um die öffentliche Wahrnehmung sowie das kollektive Gedächtnis zu kontrollieren. Die weitaus berüchtigtsten Fälle kommen aus dem stalinistischen Russland, wo es an der Tagesordnung war, sowjetische Geschichte neu zu verfassen, indem unbequeme Beteiligte plump aus allen Formen illustrierter, bildhafter Existenz entfernt wurden. Selbst diejenigen, die die frühe kommunistische Revolution unterstützt haben, wurden über Nacht vom Helden zum Bösewicht und verschwanden schlichtweg von allen offiziellen sowjetischen Fotografien. Leo Trotzki ist vielleicht das perfekte Beispiel. Sich dieses visuelle Auslöschen zu eigen machend, beinhaltet Jean-Michel Crapanzanos Projekt neue Fotografien, die Identitäten in figurativen Bildern einfach löschen und verdrängen.

Jose Ruiz
Kurator, Bronx River Art Center, New York

Invisible Empire: Ghosts and Remembrances

Jean-Michel Crapanzano explores the edge between propaganda and visual art. Before the age of Photoshop or tabloid magazines’ constant doctoring of images to sell a story, the use of falsified photography has been a long running strategy to control public perception and memory. The most notorious cases come from Stalinist Russia where it was commonplace for Soviet history to be rewritten with inconvenient participants clumsily removed from all forms of pictorial existence. Even those who had aided the Communist Revolution in its early stages could easily turn from heroes to villains overnight and crudely disappear from all official Soviet photographs. Leon Trotsky is perhaps a perfect example. Adopting this visual form of erasure, Jean-Michel Crapanzano’s project is comprised of new photographs that displace identity in figurative images.

Jose Ruiz
Curator, Bronx River Art Center, New-York

Invisible Empire: Ghost Village

Germany, coal mine.  Beside the mine, ghost-villages, deserted, the inhabitants were driven out. The villages will be soon destroyed because of the extension of the economical activities of the mine.

"Ex-Voto"

“ Who are the people ?”, “where they are?”, “what about their lives, their dreams, their fears, their love and feelings ?” and “who controlled them ?”

 I asked to models to pose as “human altar” with personal  objects who have a deep significations for them. These objects represent an important moment of their live, and are mean as symbol of their personality.

I arranged the composition with the idea to create a "body protection”. I asked them to write about the signification of these objects, and what could be their hope for the future ( which does mean "Ex-Voto", a votive altar dedicated to gratitude/ hope for divinities). That's interesting to see what they brought, and I will extend the serie to other people from other countries/culture, that would be very interesting to see the differences. These objects are not only "usual material things" but are the transmitters/receivers of the past ( (through all the remembrances of the models) and the connection with future. This " poetical invisible empire" behind things is what I  search for since a while now.