Twelve photographers
LISE SARFATI
Born 1958. Lives and works in Paris.
Lise Sarfati took up photography when she was a teenager living in Nice. She saw Nice as a big baroque theater inhabited by flocks of old people in a state of decay and by those on the fringes of society.
At the age of fifteen, Lise Sarfati went to Russia for the first time, where she spent her holidays in Sochi, on the coast of the Black Sea. She subsequently wrote her thesis on 1920s Russian photography and obtained a master’s degree in Russian studies from the Sorbonne.
After working and showing at the Galerie La Fontaine Obscure in Aix-en-Provence, she was hired in 1986 as official photographer of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
She returned to Russia in 1989 and went on to devote nearly a decade of study to this country in full transition. During this period, she received grants from the Ministry of Culture and the Villa Médicis Hors les Murs. In Russia, she met many intellectuals and filmmakers, as well as outcasts of society. She spent three years visually exploring the personal relationships she had with these people before turning her focus to architecture and objects.
The photographs she took in Russia were brought together in the year 2000 in her first book Acta Est. The title refers to the Latin phrase Acta Est Fabula, meaning “the play is over,” which, in ancient times, was announced to invite the audience to retire. The implicit theatricality of her images comes out in the choice of scenes from everyday life, marked by a brutal starkness and emptiness. Paired with the use of bold colors, her photographs are aesthetically and emotionally intense.
After the death of Marguerite Duras in 1996, Lise Sarfati photographed the writer’s apartment and her house in Neauphle-le-Château, naming the series Post factum. These pictures constitute a sort of inventory of intimacy taken from the places where the writer lived and worked.
Together with several intellectuals and photographers, in 1998, Lise Sarfati worked on the book France, les révolutions invisibles, in which each contributor offered his or her personal view of the underlying transformations of French society today.
© Lise Sarfati / Magnum Photos
In 2003 Lise Sarfati went to the United States. In Louisiana, Georgia, Texas, California, and Oregon, she looked at the solitary lives of numerous young people, a majority of which are women. Her pictures show the emptiness that occupies their existence: in their bedrooms, in their backyards, in their parent’s living rooms, at the supermarket . . . Probed by Lise Sarfati’s vision, their daily lives reveal a troubling lack of purpose and a certain state of disarray. This project will be published in 2005.
Awards: 1986
Visa d’Or, Prix Kodak du Jeune Reporter.
1994 Prime à la Qualité, Centre National du Cinéma, for C’est moi, c’est Roger.
1995 Fiacre Ministère de la Culture. 1996 Villa Médicis Hors les Murs.
1996 Prix Niepce.
1996 Infinity Award, International Center of Photography.
Exhibitions (selection):
1996 Prix Niépce, Centre National de la Photographie, Paris, France.
1997 Musée Nicéphore Niépce, Châlon-sur-Saône, France.
2001 Oublier l’exposition (group show), Fondation Huis Marseille, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
2002 Post factum, Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie, Arles, France.
2002 Acta Est, Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris, France.
2004–2006 Lise Sarfati, Domus Artium, Salamanca, Spain; Yossi Milo Gallery, New York, USA; Nicolaj Center of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen, Denmark.
2005 American Series, The Photographers’ Gallery, London, UK.
Films:
1994 C’est moi, c’est Roger. Short film.
Publications:
Acta Est. Phaidon, London and Paris, 2000.
Lise Sarfati. Fundacion Salamanca Ciudad de Cultura, Salamanca, 2004.
Post factum. Xavier Barral, Paris, 2005. La Vie Nouvelle. Twin Palms, Santa Fe, 2005.
La Vie Nouvelle. Twin Palms, Santa Fe, 2005.
Lise Sarfati took up photography when she was a teenager living in Nice. She saw Nice as a big baroque theater inhabited by flocks of old people in a state of decay and by those on the fringes of society.
At the age of fifteen, Lise Sarfati went to Russia for the first time, where she spent her holidays in Sochi, on the coast of the Black Sea. She subsequently wrote her thesis on 1920s Russian photography and obtained a master’s degree in Russian studies from the Sorbonne.
After working and showing at the Galerie La Fontaine Obscure in Aix-en-Provence, she was hired in 1986 as official photographer of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
She returned to Russia in 1989 and went on to devote nearly a decade of study to this country in full transition. During this period, she received grants from the Ministry of Culture and the Villa Médicis Hors les Murs. In Russia, she met many intellectuals and filmmakers, as well as outcasts of society. She spent three years visually exploring the personal relationships she had with these people before turning her focus to architecture and objects.
The photographs she took in Russia were brought together in the year 2000 in her first book Acta Est. The title refers to the Latin phrase Acta Est Fabula, meaning “the play is over,” which, in ancient times, was announced to invite the audience to retire. The implicit theatricality of her images comes out in the choice of scenes from everyday life, marked by a brutal starkness and emptiness. Paired with the use of bold colors, her photographs are aesthetically and emotionally intense.
After the death of Marguerite Duras in 1996, Lise Sarfati photographed the writer’s apartment and her house in Neauphle-le-Château, naming the series Post factum. These pictures constitute a sort of inventory of intimacy taken from the places where the writer lived and worked.
Together with several intellectuals and photographers, in 1998, Lise Sarfati worked on the book France, les révolutions invisibles, in which each contributor offered his or her personal view of the underlying transformations of French society today.
© Lise Sarfati / Magnum Photos
In 2003 Lise Sarfati went to the United States. In Louisiana, Georgia, Texas, California, and Oregon, she looked at the solitary lives of numerous young people, a majority of which are women. Her pictures show the emptiness that occupies their existence: in their bedrooms, in their backyards, in their parent’s living rooms, at the supermarket . . . Probed by Lise Sarfati’s vision, their daily lives reveal a troubling lack of purpose and a certain state of disarray. This project will be published in 2005.
Awards: 1986
Visa d’Or, Prix Kodak du Jeune Reporter.
1994 Prime à la Qualité, Centre National du Cinéma, for C’est moi, c’est Roger.
1995 Fiacre Ministère de la Culture. 1996 Villa Médicis Hors les Murs.
1996 Prix Niepce.
1996 Infinity Award, International Center of Photography.
Exhibitions (selection):
1996 Prix Niépce, Centre National de la Photographie, Paris, France.
1997 Musée Nicéphore Niépce, Châlon-sur-Saône, France.
2001 Oublier l’exposition (group show), Fondation Huis Marseille, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
2002 Post factum, Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie, Arles, France.
2002 Acta Est, Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris, France.
2004–2006 Lise Sarfati, Domus Artium, Salamanca, Spain; Yossi Milo Gallery, New York, USA; Nicolaj Center of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen, Denmark.
2005 American Series, The Photographers’ Gallery, London, UK.
Films:
1994 C’est moi, c’est Roger. Short film.
Publications:
Acta Est. Phaidon, London and Paris, 2000.
Lise Sarfati. Fundacion Salamanca Ciudad de Cultura, Salamanca, 2004.
Post factum. Xavier Barral, Paris, 2005. La Vie Nouvelle. Twin Palms, Santa Fe, 2005.
La Vie Nouvelle. Twin Palms, Santa Fe, 2005.