Photofairs 2023

For PHOTOFAIRS New York 2023, Ruttkowski;68 highlights the most recent body of work of French photographer François Halard (b.1961, FR).

In approach and perspective, Halard seamlessly follows up on his previous solo exhibition with the gallery in Paris, showing photographs made with a polaroid camera, cropped, enlarged, eventually reworked and – some of them partially recoated by words or lines, drops or patterns of wax.

Tulips, peonies and especially their strong, intensive red tonalities form the protagonists of this new series. The artist uses the enlargement of their details as a canvas and – in their abstraction – lets the outlines blur to create space for the incorporation of personal memories, imprints and references.

Through an appropriation of some of the historically most iconic imagery of painting – still life and particularly the depiction of flowers, inscribed with manifold symbolisms – Halard creates a homage to the act of painting in and through photography. In the infinite depths of an extensive red, an imaginary power is revealed that shifts and overcomes the classical boundaries between photography, painting, figuration and its abstraction.

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