Old New World
2020
> Solo show: Galerie Durev (Paris, France). April-June 2021.
> Lithographs by Atelier Michal Woolworth
Analog pictures made on a japanese paper negative, printed as lithographs, see the film on the process below
[FR]
De mars à mai 2020, alors que Paris entre en confinement lié à la Covid-19, je décide de montrer l’arrêt d’un modèle qui a atteint ses limites, vécues alors si intensément. L’épidémie a rappelé à l’humanité, bercée par l’illusion de puissance produite par la modernité, sa fragilité. Pour rendre compte du caractère surnaturel ressenti alors, je choisis de détourner la représentation attendue de la photographie argentique documentaire par un procédé qui brouille nos repères de passé, de présent, de futur, de réalité et de fiction.
Ces photographies sont réalisées sur un négatif en papier japonais qui leur confère un aspect d’un autre temps. Les tirages ont été pensés pour la lithogravure, afin de confronter physiquement les éléments concrets qui ont permis leur existence avec l’étrange flottement dont nous avons été témoins.
[EN]
From March to May 2020, as Paris enters a Covid-19-related lockdown, I decide to show the cessation of a model that has reached its limits, experienced so intensely at the time. The epidemic has reminded humanity, lulled by the illusion of power produced by modernity, of its fragility. To capture the supernatural character felt at the time, I choose to divert the expected representation of documentary silver photography by a process that blurs our reference points of past, present, future, reality and fiction.
These photographs are made on a Japanese paper negative which gives them an aspect of another time. The prints have been designed for lithography, in order to physically confront the concrete elements that allowed them to exist with the strange floating that we have witnessed.
Printing process
Although the paper negative already shows amazingly delicate texture (the paper fiber, the fine lines seen in the pictures above), I chose to produce the prints of the exhibition on a traditional lithographic press with a photopolymer print process, in order to confront the fragility of the moment with the materiality of the metal plate used as a matrix during the inking process: