Matthew Bakkom in Paris

Until the 4^th of November Les Arts decoratif Center in Paris exhibits Face à Face, a project by Matthew Bakkom. The exhibition explores the Paris disappeared in the nineteenth century, which is, found in the photographs and documents of Jules Maciet, who managed to concentrate the greater collection of images of his time.

This exhibition is held with the support of the City of Paris and the international residency program from the French Institute, this project was done by the visual artist Matthew Bakkom, who carefully examined the photographic materials of Maciet and discovered a hidden treasure that decided to rescue it from darkness. In order to achieve his objective, he scanned portraits of a booming nineteenth century Paris, with delicate precision.

With these portraits, the exhibition Face à Face is organized, which commemorates the centenary of the death of Jules Maciet and a publication entitled The invisible hand by Jules Maciet, in which Bakkom develops a poetic image and apply interesting processes to the work to convey a portrait of Paris

Matthew Bakkom was born in Minneapolis, USA, in 1968. In the early 1990, he began working as a visual artist, exhibiting in North America and Europe his work. He has developed interesting projects that place him as an important conceptual artist. He has also conducted creative research collections and archives, which are often used as a basis for his work, while making very interesting proposals. Although his work is difficult to qualify in an artistic discipline, some critics define it as sculpture. In his later works he has used the scanner as an artistic tool to duplicate and manipulate images or simply data, taking it as an extension of photography, in the sense of capture and recapture the image.

Maciet Jules was born in 1846 and was a millionaire, philanthropist and scholar, art collector who donated the collection that bears his name and is located in the Library of Les Arts decoratif. The 5000 album contains more than one million images that are classified by subject, period and country. The thematic chapters invite you to stroll through the documents collected with a hint of affection and passion. there are the prints of the Renaissance, the eighteenth century, nineteenth-century photographs, the covers of prestigious magazines of decoration and many other curiosities.

The exhibition is an interesting encounter between two views of art, a classic, almost conservative, because Maciet looks at it as decoration and not as an instance of creation, while Bakkom does not set his eye on the object itself, but on concepts that emanate from him. Two worlds, two eyes, a counterpoint where they join dissimilar ways to show a city that inspires and has inspired thousands of artists.

For more information: http://www.lesartsdecoratifs.fr/francais/accueil-292/une-486/francais/bibliotheque/expositions-583/actuellement-584/face-a-face-un-projet-de-matthew/

A good alternative to enjoy these months before the end of 2011, is to spend a few days of infinite pleasure in apartments in Paris and together with the flood of passion that causes this city, you can take advantage of it and visit the fine exhibitions at Les Arts decoratif.

Translated by: Hans