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Daily Star - Lebanon, Lebanon
June 17 2005
The Chameleon: Ariane Delacampagne blends into the urban environment
Beiruti-turned-New York photographer unveils her first show in
Lebanon
By Kaelen Wilson-Goldie
Daily Star staff
Friday, June 17, 2005
BEIRUT: Stand long enough on a busy street corner in a bustling city,
any city, and you'll see a million melodramas in minutia erupting all
around you. The trick, for Ariane Delacampagne, is to catch them with
her camera, to frame them in compositions that later, when reproduced
and hung on an interior wall, will crack open and release the same
energy that was palpable on the street.
Schooled on the work of Gary Winograd and Lee Friedlander,
Delacampagne is a photographer of the urban and the everyday. The
lush and deliberate arrangement of form and color apparent in every
one of her images probably puts her more in line with William
Eggleston (born in Memphis, raised on a cotton plantation in the
Mississippi Delta, widely considered the most influential color
photographer the U.S. has ever seen), who once described his pictures
"like jokes and like lessons," according to novelist and fellow
southerner Donna Tart. Delacampagne's style draws strength from
vintage street photography with its embrace of the vernacular, but it
also indulges more formal structures and more weighty conceptual
concerns.
Through June 18, nearly 40 of Delacampagne's photographs are on view
at Galerie Rochane in Saifi for an exhibition entitled "Villes
Japonaises (Japanese Cities)." The show is her first in Lebanon,
after a handful of group exhibitions in the U.S.
It also comes at a time when she is preparing for an upcoming outing
at the Nimes Fine Art School in the South of France, for which she
has been commissioned to produce a body of work in black and white on
flamenco.
Born Ariane Ateshian in Beirut (Delacampagne's Armenian maiden name,
she explains with a slow burning smile, means "fire" in Turkish), she
studied political science at the American University of Beirut and
worked for two years in Lebanese television during the mid 1980s. She
now lives and works in Yorkville, on Manhattan's Upper East Side, and
considers herself a true New Yorker, though she returns to Beirut
every summer to see her family.
In terms of photography, she explains, "I started professionally, and
seriously, five years ago. I had the opportunity to travel so I took
a camera with me. But I wanted to go beyond pictures you'd take as
souvenirs. I took a class at ICP, the International Center for
Photography in New York. My teacher pushed me toward street
photography. I fell in love with this kind of photography."
It takes a long time, she explains, because you have to watch and you
have to wait. But if the process requires "patience, tenacity," then
the reward is an aesthetic that captures "the intensity and vibrancy
of New York. This is the kind of photography I try to apply wherever
I go, whether Vietnam or Lebanon. I don't like the idea of posing.
This approach suits me best."
When Delacampagne is taking pictures, she doesn't tell her subjects
and doesn't ask for permission. Rather, she enters the city and
enters the crowd and waits long enough to blend in, long enough to
take in the full scope of the scene around her, long enough for her
subjects to notice her and get used to her.
"If I tell them it disrupts the equilibrium. I try to be part of the
crowd, not invisible," she says, but practically so. "You have to
stay for a long time."
For the time being, Delacampagne has no plans to go digital and
shoots with a small, traditional camera. Her work consists of
"untouched prints" without manipulation. "What I do doesn't need it.
Street photography doesn't really need it. You get raw emotion. I'm
not saying I won't someday use digital but for now I like the fact
that my camera is discrete."
To make her point, she lifts one elbow to reveal the case of her
conspicuous black Leica, heretofore invisible as Delacampagne sits in
the gallery at Rochane, clad in pomo New Yorker black with unruly
hair, smart spectacles, and lips stained the red of vintage 1940s
glamour.
"I don't want to change yet," she adds. "I haven't exhausted all the
possibilities." Still, she adds, "I'm not that much of a purist."
Delacampagne is drawn to the life pulsing through big cities and big
crowds. "There is always so much happening, even if you stay on one
street corner," she says. "I would love to go to New Delhi. I would
love to take more pictures in Cairo."
At present, Delacampagne says, Asian cities are of particular
interest to her.
"There is all this movement and vitality. Japan was very new to me. I
am attracted by large crowds and Japanese cities are wonderful from a
photographer's point of view."
Tokyo and Kyoto also made for a nice contrast. "Kyoto is like
Florence - there are so many temples; it seems frozen in time; it is
absolutely pristine. I think one can spend months and years shooting
there."
One of the things that interested Delacampagne most was the
juxtaposition in Japan between tradition and modernity, something
that extends far beyond any one particular geopolitical location and
finds expression in others, linking, in this case, Japan to Lebanon.
For her first show in Beirut, she explains, "I thought it was a good
opportunity to show something different and quite joyful. Japanese
cities have a joy and exuberance to them. And I was interested also
in how, in Japan after World War II, they managed to build a society
after the war. It is interesting to see how they did that and how
they maintained their traditions.
"Everyday rituals are something I try to photograph in many different
cultures. I'm interested in the relationships men have with religious
rituals. How do we live in modern societies? How do we maintain a
rapport between them?"
At Galerie Rochane, one of Delacampagne's images captures a foxy,
leggy mom in knee-high stiletto boots, crouched down to arrange her
daughter's traditional dress for a cultural celebration in Tokyo. In
Kyoto, she pictures a group of students visiting a temple before
their exams to catch water from a sacred source for a gesture of good
luck. In what looks like a typical inner-city greasy-spoon diner, she
frames a young fisherman, taking a rest after the early morning haul,
reading a newspaper in a dining room full of similarly solitary
clientele.
Delacampagne describes her work as spontaneous, but clearly her
approach is more methodological and more thoughtful. Taking the time
needed to blend into a city also involves taking the time required to
absorb it and to get to know its rhythms and customs and boundaries.
But in the end, Delacampagne takes her time to fulfill a more
artistic and aesthetic desire.
"I look for many things at the same time," she explains. "I look for
movement, color, expression, form, and when they coincide, and always
when there is tension - that's important - I am satisfied."
Ariane Delacampagne's "Villes Japonaises (Japanese Cities)" is on
view at Galerie Rochane through June 18. For more information, call
+961 1 972 238
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
June 17 2005
The Chameleon: Ariane Delacampagne blends into the urban environment
Beiruti-turned-New York photographer unveils her first show in
Lebanon
By Kaelen Wilson-Goldie
Daily Star staff
Friday, June 17, 2005
BEIRUT: Stand long enough on a busy street corner in a bustling city,
any city, and you'll see a million melodramas in minutia erupting all
around you. The trick, for Ariane Delacampagne, is to catch them with
her camera, to frame them in compositions that later, when reproduced
and hung on an interior wall, will crack open and release the same
energy that was palpable on the street.
Schooled on the work of Gary Winograd and Lee Friedlander,
Delacampagne is a photographer of the urban and the everyday. The
lush and deliberate arrangement of form and color apparent in every
one of her images probably puts her more in line with William
Eggleston (born in Memphis, raised on a cotton plantation in the
Mississippi Delta, widely considered the most influential color
photographer the U.S. has ever seen), who once described his pictures
"like jokes and like lessons," according to novelist and fellow
southerner Donna Tart. Delacampagne's style draws strength from
vintage street photography with its embrace of the vernacular, but it
also indulges more formal structures and more weighty conceptual
concerns.
Through June 18, nearly 40 of Delacampagne's photographs are on view
at Galerie Rochane in Saifi for an exhibition entitled "Villes
Japonaises (Japanese Cities)." The show is her first in Lebanon,
after a handful of group exhibitions in the U.S.
It also comes at a time when she is preparing for an upcoming outing
at the Nimes Fine Art School in the South of France, for which she
has been commissioned to produce a body of work in black and white on
flamenco.
Born Ariane Ateshian in Beirut (Delacampagne's Armenian maiden name,
she explains with a slow burning smile, means "fire" in Turkish), she
studied political science at the American University of Beirut and
worked for two years in Lebanese television during the mid 1980s. She
now lives and works in Yorkville, on Manhattan's Upper East Side, and
considers herself a true New Yorker, though she returns to Beirut
every summer to see her family.
In terms of photography, she explains, "I started professionally, and
seriously, five years ago. I had the opportunity to travel so I took
a camera with me. But I wanted to go beyond pictures you'd take as
souvenirs. I took a class at ICP, the International Center for
Photography in New York. My teacher pushed me toward street
photography. I fell in love with this kind of photography."
It takes a long time, she explains, because you have to watch and you
have to wait. But if the process requires "patience, tenacity," then
the reward is an aesthetic that captures "the intensity and vibrancy
of New York. This is the kind of photography I try to apply wherever
I go, whether Vietnam or Lebanon. I don't like the idea of posing.
This approach suits me best."
When Delacampagne is taking pictures, she doesn't tell her subjects
and doesn't ask for permission. Rather, she enters the city and
enters the crowd and waits long enough to blend in, long enough to
take in the full scope of the scene around her, long enough for her
subjects to notice her and get used to her.
"If I tell them it disrupts the equilibrium. I try to be part of the
crowd, not invisible," she says, but practically so. "You have to
stay for a long time."
For the time being, Delacampagne has no plans to go digital and
shoots with a small, traditional camera. Her work consists of
"untouched prints" without manipulation. "What I do doesn't need it.
Street photography doesn't really need it. You get raw emotion. I'm
not saying I won't someday use digital but for now I like the fact
that my camera is discrete."
To make her point, she lifts one elbow to reveal the case of her
conspicuous black Leica, heretofore invisible as Delacampagne sits in
the gallery at Rochane, clad in pomo New Yorker black with unruly
hair, smart spectacles, and lips stained the red of vintage 1940s
glamour.
"I don't want to change yet," she adds. "I haven't exhausted all the
possibilities." Still, she adds, "I'm not that much of a purist."
Delacampagne is drawn to the life pulsing through big cities and big
crowds. "There is always so much happening, even if you stay on one
street corner," she says. "I would love to go to New Delhi. I would
love to take more pictures in Cairo."
At present, Delacampagne says, Asian cities are of particular
interest to her.
"There is all this movement and vitality. Japan was very new to me. I
am attracted by large crowds and Japanese cities are wonderful from a
photographer's point of view."
Tokyo and Kyoto also made for a nice contrast. "Kyoto is like
Florence - there are so many temples; it seems frozen in time; it is
absolutely pristine. I think one can spend months and years shooting
there."
One of the things that interested Delacampagne most was the
juxtaposition in Japan between tradition and modernity, something
that extends far beyond any one particular geopolitical location and
finds expression in others, linking, in this case, Japan to Lebanon.
For her first show in Beirut, she explains, "I thought it was a good
opportunity to show something different and quite joyful. Japanese
cities have a joy and exuberance to them. And I was interested also
in how, in Japan after World War II, they managed to build a society
after the war. It is interesting to see how they did that and how
they maintained their traditions.
"Everyday rituals are something I try to photograph in many different
cultures. I'm interested in the relationships men have with religious
rituals. How do we live in modern societies? How do we maintain a
rapport between them?"
At Galerie Rochane, one of Delacampagne's images captures a foxy,
leggy mom in knee-high stiletto boots, crouched down to arrange her
daughter's traditional dress for a cultural celebration in Tokyo. In
Kyoto, she pictures a group of students visiting a temple before
their exams to catch water from a sacred source for a gesture of good
luck. In what looks like a typical inner-city greasy-spoon diner, she
frames a young fisherman, taking a rest after the early morning haul,
reading a newspaper in a dining room full of similarly solitary
clientele.
Delacampagne describes her work as spontaneous, but clearly her
approach is more methodological and more thoughtful. Taking the time
needed to blend into a city also involves taking the time required to
absorb it and to get to know its rhythms and customs and boundaries.
But in the end, Delacampagne takes her time to fulfill a more
artistic and aesthetic desire.
"I look for many things at the same time," she explains. "I look for
movement, color, expression, form, and when they coincide, and always
when there is tension - that's important - I am satisfied."
Ariane Delacampagne's "Villes Japonaises (Japanese Cities)" is on
view at Galerie Rochane through June 18. For more information, call
+961 1 972 238
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress