Thierry Fontaine's Paradoxical Photography at Galerie Les Filles du Calvaire

Thierry Fontaine, born on Réunion Island and educated in Strasbourg, has held residencies at Villa Medici in Rome, New Caledonia, Australia, South Africa, and Sweden. His exhibition at Galerie Les Filles du Calvaire in Paris (October 31–November 30, 2013) presents photographs that explore acculturation and the impossibility of sharing exoticism. Fontaine returns to bare life, bodies, and natural elements (earth, water, fire). His images are abrupt and paradoxical: burning light bulbs, glass pierced with nails, a golden skeleton in nature. The human face is absent—his self-portraits show his face masked with mud, grass, or plastic bottles. He states, "As soon as you show a face, the gaze stops." Fontaine critiques mass tourism by depicting an indigenous person painting coconuts to imitate footballs or making tiny Eiffel Towers from shells, their face hidden in anonymity. The work confronts globalization, reducing the other to an object without face or meaning. The exhibition includes the piece "Chaque homme est une île" (Every Man Is an Island), where a reader (or author) reads a book of that title. The principle of contradiction explodes in these images, which follow an elusive guiding scheme. The review is by Claire Margat.