What can we expect nowadays from an artist expressing himself through photography?
This medium can reveal the sensitivity of the artist through his eyes and his way of revealing the power of an image. Ever since photography has existed, the technological evolution has opened an increasingly broad field of expression. For this exhibition, two artists have pushed the experiment to the point of annihilating the boundaries of artistic techniques, treating photography as sculpture for Zhang Wei or as painting for Wahib Chehata.
Each recognized for their extreme precision work, these artists offer us to discover photography differently.
For Zhang Wei, using the detail of different people to recreate celebrities’ portraits is photographic surgery. Like a sculptor, he assembles and models his figures, not as doppelgangers but rather as contemporary Frankensteins. Mobilizing all these details requires extreme concentration and perfect knowledge of the facial features of his subjects. This work leads us to ask questions about idolatry in terms of aesthetics. Do we really know all these stars that we only see in photographs or on screen? In the end, made up or retouched, these personalities only give us illusory familiarity.
By the very composition of each of these portraits, the artist shows us that if they exist it is after all only through their public.
As for Wahib Chehata, a lifetime would not be enough to satisfy his needs for creation, and his work force is matched only by the respect he has for his masters. This artist’s universe reflects the evolution of our society using different mythologies as basis. With a contemporary tool which is the graphical palette, Wahib opens new fields in the way of perceiving a painting. Indeed, the photographic support here meets all the requirements for painted works.
Wahib's speech for this exhibition echoes Zhang Wei’s in his manner of treating his subjects, once in macro and later in monumental to return to the human. His movements shake the viewers up and into taking an introspective journey.
Based on the same reflection shared by Wahib Chehata and Zhang Wei, this exhibition shows two different ways of drawing attention to the place of Man in our society through a computer tool known to all, but by exploiting its capacities to the extreme.
——Anthony Phuong
