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Alexia Goethe Gallery is pleased to present Photographs, a solo exhibition by Lionel Scoccimaro. Through a diverse body of work Scoccimaro explores l’art populaire and questions cultural hierarchies as well as the status of photography itself.
Lionel Scoccimaro is not a photographer, which is what makes his photographic work so interesting.
In actual fact, he is more than a photographer. If he appears to sculpt the image, it is to take the medium of photography even further. He uses this to explore territories that are new, underground, virgin or charted by other pioneers. He is not content merely to display his use and command of all of the established rules of traditional photography. He seeks to go beyond technique, to give himself something to say and to give us something to see. He then amuses himself with these clichés like a child of post-modernism, or like an old classic well versed in all the avant-gardes, and vice versa.
His desire to make the familiar unfamiliar enables one to find in his work mischievous and vibrant octogenarians, young scantily-clad girls, anonymously famous beaches on the other side of the world, paintings by masters, a wrestler, lost dentures, two incredible film directors, lascivious sculptures, masses of bubbles, or nothing more than a cigarette. For him, it is a voyage in the form of a daily journey, like a routine, magical, of which one would never tire. It is truly extraordinary.
Lionel Scoccimaro does more than photography, which is precisely what makes his approach so extraordinary. He produces photos that are not photos, or rather, that are more than just photos. Installations (the Octodégénérés series on coloured walls, prints from the Surf Trip series, used as hanging “décor”), videos (including Just a cigarette and Devant la glace), posters (Surf Trip), sculptures, artefacts made out of by-products (the Pin-Ups series), etc. The title of the exhibition, “Photographs”, would therefore appear to be an implicit understatement: everything is clearly photography. The only thing is that he uses it not for what it is, but for what it represents.
The above is an extract from an essay by Benjamin Bianciotto for the exhibition “Photographs” in 2010.
Lionel Scoccimaro was born in Marseille, 1973. He lives and works in Marseille. He has exhibited widely accross Europe, participated in international art fairs (including Fiac and Art Basel) and has works in public institutions (including Les nouveaux collectioneurs, CG 13, Marseille, France, Collection Centre d’art Contemporain De Willem 3 Vlissingen, Netherlands, Collection Centre d’art Contemporain de Morsang-sur-Orge, France, Fond communal d’art contemporain de la ville de Marseille, France and Musée d’art contemporain de Marseille, France).
For further press material please contact the gallery on 00 44 (0) 20 7629 0090 or via email at press@alexiagoethegallery.com
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