PRESS : Eric Tabuchi

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Q /A
1. When, how and why did you start in the Photoghraphy? Was it vocacional?
My visual culture originally came from magazines. Ever since I was a child, I have been fascinated by printed pictures, by newsmagazines where you could find all sorts of photographs, without any genuine hierarchy. More than the subjects themselves, what really captivated me was their diversity, as well as the mix of luxury and vulgarity those pictures offered. Intuitively, I also believe that the “pop” aspect of the magazine format contributed a lot to the appeal they had for me. But it’s true that I began taking pictures about ten years ago, after having studied sociology, and more particularly the concept of objectivity. Discovering American photography — Lewis Baltz among others — and then the work of Bernd and Hilla Becher- most certainly had a decisive influence on my choice.

2. What does it mean for you?
I’m not convinced photography as a whole means something. Photography is first and foremost a technique for recording images. That is precisely the reason why it is so captivating — literally, it consists in capturing stuff. But, to answer your question, I think that photography is above all a projection of the past into the future, an anticipation of what has been and will no longer exist. That is why I often wait for several years before publishing or exhibiting my photographs.

3. Your work is a continuous road movie that remind me to the Beat Generation... Looking at your pictures is like been reading On the Road (Kerouak). Are you inspired by the beat generation? What does it mean The Road for you?
Obviously, America — hence the road — is a key element of my work insofar as the West perfectly encapsulates the notion of wandering. I was born in France of a Japanese father and a Danish mother, and as a result I’ve always experienced the feeling of loneliness and uprooting that is so typical of American art, from Kerouac to Hopper, and whose ideal traveling companion is the perpetually renewed horizon. However, I consider myself a French photographer primarily. In fact, I take all my pictures within a 250-km radius from Paris. It is into this area I’m so close and familiar with that I transpose the reference to America.

4. Why did you develope a modern version of the Ed Ruscha's serie Twentysix Gasoline Stations? What are your artistic references?
“Twenty-six Gasoline Stations” is for me a perfect illustration of the distancing of photography. The picture is conceived with its reproduction in mind, not in the form of an original photograph but as reproductions of a photograph. I don’t consider myself a true photographer, but rather an artist using photography, and I’ve always been interested in the book as a multiple object, devoid of the fetishism inherent in “art” prints. I’ve been taking pictures of abandoned gas stations for many years, and it seemed to me that linking up those pictures to Ed Ruscha’s book made sense. Making a book which literally acts as an archeology of its forerunner, 40 years after it was published, as if I had been driving down that abandoned road again, also seemed relevant.

5. The deserted places are a constant feature in your work, talk me about them...
I take pictures of deserted places because they emphasize form. Away from the hustle and bustle, each site, each subject turns into some sort of character, as if had been artificially placed there, almost a logo. Of course the feeling of order and stillness that results from this choice is not objective at all, in spite of appearances. But somehow I like the idea of using what is there in order to compose a quasi-graphic typology that makes it possible to rearrange things, a little à la Sim City — an idealized world, almost dreamlike, totally different from the commonplace stuff I’m photographing.

6. Your photgraphy technique is also fabulous, Which type of cameras do you use?
This might be a disappointment to you, but I have to say I use all sorts of cameras, and most of them are very ordinary cameras.

7. Frecuently you capture abandoned, rusting, toxic-leaking architectural ruins but with a little bit distance, showing us the object as it is, and sometimes it seems like the photographer disappears, is it your intention?
Building sites, ruins, etc. — much of what I photograph is in the process of appearing or vanishing, which could be interpreted as birth and death. That’s why I’m always very careful to prevent viewers from slipping from the first interpretation to the second one — it is crucial for me to remain detached, to avoid emotion. Neutral centering, the mechanical accumulation of series, etc. are among the methods I use so as to turn my unintentional melancholy into something more objective.

8. What is your modus operandi?
Well, it’s pretty simple actually. I drive around a lot, randomly, on the outskirts of towns, searching for maximum correspondence between reality and my own mental image of the landscape. The rest is just observation, and intuition sometimes. Whatever the light, whatever the weather, I very seldom take a picture twice.

9. You live in Paris, a big city full of diferent things, people,... and your work seems like an escape from all these things, is it right?
I’m not very comfortable with big cities — or forests for that matter. Apparently, I’m a lot more interested in horizontality (rest?) than verticality (activity?), more drawn to the empty than the full. But of course, in order to break out, one needs a prison.

10. I think that the Mobile Home Serie captures all the features of your style, intention,... is it true?
The “Mobile Home” series shows various aspects of my work, mainly the concept of duality that forms its backbone. Combining “Mobile” and “Home” pretty much amounts to trying to square the circle. This contradiction between a nomadic and a settled way of life — as well as the different attempts at resolving it into some vague ideal — point to notions such as belonging, territory, origins, etc.

11. Also you are "design icon" with the alphabet truck serie, how did it cross your mind that serie?
As is often the case, the idea originated from the more or less fortuitous combination of several elements. In that particular case, John Baldessari’s “The Back Of All The Trucks Passed While Driving From Los Angeles To Santa Barbara”, my interest in typography and more generally vernacular graphic arts, and a picture of the letter “N” I took almost by chance while driving on the highway. And as is often the case, putting those different elements together to create an object can take quite a long time. Through language (“Alphabet”) and motion (“Truck”), “Alphabet Truck” examines notions such as belonging, identity and territory, just like “Mobile Home”.