When?: May 12th – 14th 2023
Where?: Photodoc
Halle des Blancs Manteaux
75003 Paris
In Palermo there is a cemetery unlike any other: the catacombs of the Capuchin convent. Since 1599 on for almost three centuries, a whole society has been buried there, from the humblest to the most noble: princes, bishops, and public figures. Reclining or upright, isolated or in groups, here the dead have not been buried, hidden forever from the eyes of the living. Here, they are displayed, staged, and deeply moving; corpses whose mummification has preserved their clothing, attitudes, and expressions in a particularly disturbing way.
In black and white, using the little natural light escaping from the few light shafts, is an extraordinary photo reportage that Jesse A. Fernández made in 1980 for his friend Anne de Margerie, then director of Éditions du Chêne. With striking images, at times so poignant as to be unbearable, the expressive nature of these mummies seems to invite us to follow a sort of grandiose and funereal opera in which the glory, vanity, misery and decay of the world play the leading roles.The juxtaposition of a well-known figure and «his mummy», as Jesse A. Fernández might well have imagined, allows the visitor to Photo Doc to
look without looking away at this preserved humanity, explained in the extraordinary Capuchin convent. The diptychs presented by the gallery today allow us to perceive all their meaning.
Infos :
Communiqué de presse (pdf)
orbispictus.art
© Jesse A. Fernández
Checkmate.
Marcel Duchamp, New York, 1956
Catacombs of the convent of the Capuchins, Palermo
Vintage and modern silverprints
© Jesse A. Fernández
Dandy
Catacombs of the convent of the Capuchins, Palermo
Salvador Dali, New York, 1958
Vintage and modern silverprints
© Jesse A. Fernández
Premonition
Miles Davis, Newport Jazz Festival, Newport, 1960
Catacombs of the convent of the Capuchins, Palermo
Vintage and modern silverprints
© Jesse A. Fernández
Success
Catacombs of the convent of the Capuchins, Palermo
Françoise Sagan, New York, 1956
Vintage and modern silverprints