Spring 2020, the beginning of the pandemic, François Halard finds refuge in his Arlesian mansion. So close to Provence, the gentle valleys of the Luberon, the dry Camargue bordering the Mediterranean, the photographer cannot enjoy these southern pleasures. Locked up, isolated, the studios and houses of artists he loves to photograph are inaccessible to him.
But there is no lack of inspiration in his 18th century home. Beyond our bracketed lives, this house offers a real spatio-temporal bubble to the artist. Antique objects, silky fabrics, antique furniture, delicate paintings, art books, the playground is infinite! It is thus on the good advice of art dealer and curator Oscar Humphries that François Halard agrees to capture, during 56 days, the nooks and crannies and treasures that make up his home.
The pictures, eternal Polaroids, are not without reminding those photographed by the painter Cy Twombly. One finds there this blur and this play on the attenuation of colors. The subjects are similar: citrus fruits, flowers, vase, decorative details. The two men play with details, instantaneity and suspended time. Like George Perec, François Halard, through this series, this diary of the confined, questions the usual, the infra-ordinary. Between obsession with memory and artistic references, the photographer draws the essence of these "common things", trivial and futile that make up our lives.
But in spite of the softness and naivety that emerge from these small photos of the intimate, one feels a certain melancholy. That of an enclosed man who, in an anxiety-provoking world context, prefers to focus on the beautiful, this magnificent volatile pleasure essential to happiness.
Until February 28, 2021 at the Yvon Lambert bookstore, 14, rue des Filles du Calvaire, 75003 Paris.
