MARINA GADONEIX

Marina Gadonneix, born in Paris in 1977, studied photography at the École Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie in Arles. In 2006 she was awarded with the ‚Prix HSBC pour la Photographie.’ She lives and works in Paris.




The work title, ›Playground Disorder‹, suggests a playful handling of places and describes an order, which, whatever order it may have been, is brought into disarray. And indeed the two work groups, ›The house that burns everyday‹ and ›Crime scenes‹, both shown in extracts, are a continuance of her work that becomes manifested in her worldwide shown series: The documentation of staged reality.



Contrary to familiar artistic practice the work's creation is not in the artist's hand but discovered and documented without any intervention. Each situation is based on an essential simulation. Although a clear, unaltered image is on display, it demands an explanation. Cleverly Gadonneix’s photographs play with the clash of document, simulation and fiction. Deserted places and interiors create a rather disturbing atmosphere in which the line between real objects and fictitious incidents becomes blurred.



Rooms, like a kitchen, living room and a home office blackened by soot appear to be black and white photographs contrasting with a bright red-orange burning bed. Seemingly well-defined pictures, that are neither real nor staged. We see neither living spaces nor furniture – what we see are learnt proportions, attached to hights, depths and design – an illusion of stainless steel and concrete of which grey values are no result of develop processes of photo material but of the prevailing soot. Other realistic arranged spaces guide our gaze from the furniture to yellow eye-catchers that make any functional meaning of the enviroment disappear and direct our concentration onto little details instead.