Dana And Stephane Maitec

Reflections 2

ARCUB, Strada Lipscani, Bucharest, Romania

Dana & Stéphane Maitec present the exhibition “Reflections #2” at ARCUB

Artists with a background in theater and film scenography, an international career in art and fashion photography, and exhibitions in Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Geneva, and Los Angeles, Dana & Stéphane Maitec unveil a new approach to photography in May at ARCUB with the exhibition “Reflections #2.” The exhibition is organized by the Bucharest Municipality through ARCUB – the Cultural Center of Bucharest and can be visited between May 12-30, 2023, at ARCUB – Hanul Gabroveni, Sala Arcelor.

Since 2017, the two artists have been exploring a new dimension of photography, stepping away from the portrait photography that initially brought them fame. The series “Reflections” – a selection of which was first showcased in Romania in the exhibition “Maitec. Wood Gold Light” at the National Museum of Art of Romania in 2019/2020 – marks a transition from figurative to non-figurative photography. This body of work builds images through mirror reflections, exploring perspectives, chromatics, volumetrics, and relief forms generated by this creative method.

In a world where technology plays an increasingly dominant role in image creation, Dana & Stéphane Maitec offer a genuine experience of photography, starting from a playful interaction of folds and reflections involving sculptural objects they create in their own studio. This results in a new fluid vision of photography and a new aesthetic of imagery.

“Instead of the carefully constructed characters and scenography of our previous projects,” say Dana & Stéphane, “in the ‘Reflections’ series, we let the camera freely capture the creative potential of the mirror. We haven’t entirely abandoned our passion for scenographic arrangement; we’ve constructed sculptural objects from a variety of materials that reflect light, exploring textures, colors, and their decomposition and recomposition through mirror reflections. However, unlike our previous photographic series, the human figure is completely absent here. What we witness is a different kind of spectacle, where the camera captures the privileged moment when light, reflection, and objects interact in an unexpected dance that tells the story of these fragments of ephemeral unreality. It may seem incredible, but in this series, photography captures and eternalizes shapes and colors that don’t actually have a material reality: they are born and exist solely within the mirror. On the other hand, since we began crafting images from reflections, we have felt an irresistible temptation to take a step further into the mirror’s territory, to delve into its depths, and to explore its abysses.”

The selection of works displayed in the exhibition replaces the human figure and reality with composition, texture, chromatics, and volumetrics. The link to the duo’s previous work lies in their meticulous orchestration of light, an essential aspect of their figurative works, and a surprising return to the use of black in their compositions. “I adore black! It allows me to highlight the gaze, the flesh, the substance. Everything takes on a particular volume when it emerges from black,” Dana Maitec once stated in an interview with Photo Magazine years ago.

The exhibited photographs bring to the foreground volumetrics that seem eager to burst out of the overly narrow frame of two-dimensionality. Abstract photography, non-figurative art, optical art, and other contemporary artistic explorations have already demonstrated – to borrow an expression from the 2019 exhibition “Beyond the World We Know. Abstraction in Photography” at the Norton Simon Museum – photography’s ability to “loosen the grip of realism and suggest something beyond itself.” This is precisely what Dana & Stéphane Maitec propose in “Reflections #2”, where, beyond the photographs themselves, the exhibition also creates an interplay between image and reality, giving the reflection a tangible volumetric presence.

In the scenography of this exhibition, visitors will be surprised by an object – a pillar of light – that “migrates” from photography into the physical space in the form of a hexagonal column. Initially, one might wonder whether it’s merely a result of perspective illusion or an actual concrete structure.

By creating this gap between bi-dimensional and tri-dimensional spaces, Dana & Stéphane Maitec subtly lead viewers into a realm where the depth of the image almost ceases to be imaginary and begins to become concretely realized.

The exhibition “Reflections #2” at ARCUB – Hanul Gabroveni can be visited between May 12-30, 2023, Tuesday to Sunday, from 12:00 PM to 8:00 PM. The exhibition is closed on Mondays.

Curator: Irina Ungureanu

Tickets can be purchased online at arcub.ro, Entertix.ro, Myticket.ro, at partner stores, and at the ARCUB ticket office (Lipscani Street 84-90).

Ticket prices: 35 lei (Category I). Students, pensioners, and retirees presenting their ID/pension card at the ARCUB ticket office can purchase tickets at a discounted price of 25 lei (Category II).

Organizers: The Bucharest Municipality through ARCUB – the Cultural Center of Bucharest and the Department of Culture, Education, and Tourism.

Media Partners: Radio București FM, Agerpres, Societatea de Transport București

Dana & Stéphane Maitec

Dana & Stéphane Maitec have been working together since 1996 and formed an artistic duo in 2002. Visual artists and photographers, they are members of Maison des Artistes in France and live and work in Paris. Over nearly three decades, they have established themselves in fashion and portrait photography, with their works published in Financial Times, Elle, Where Magazine, Worth Magazine, and Paris Magazine, among others.

A permanent affinity with the artistic world led them, in 2004, to document Romanian artists in Paris, resulting in the project Les ateliers des artistes roumains à Paris, an important testimony to the lives and creations of Romanian artists in the French capital at the start of the new millennium. With the series Crowning Heads Machine (2013) and Café Flore(2016), their work defined a distinctive visual pattern in figurative photography, characterized by a scenographic composition of the image and a preference for black-and-white as a predominant artistic choice.

With the project Minimal in 2014, they began transitioning from figurative to non-figurative and abstract photography. The series Reflections, launched in 2017, pushes this exploration into a completely new territory for the two artists, where photography is no longer centered on the human spectacle but on the play of reflections, chromatic innovation, and the fluidity of light.

In recent years, Dana & Stéphane Maitec have participated in La Couleur en Mouvement at Galerie Wagner in Paris, alongside renowned international artists such as Julio Le Parc and Carlos Cruz-Diez, the exhibition Wood Gold Light at the National Museum of Art of Romania in 2019/2020, and Constructures at NAG Paris in 2018, among others. Their works are part of private collections in Romania, France, Monaco, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, the United States, Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia, New Zealand, and Mexico.

Tags: ARCUB – Hanul Gabroveni, Dana & Stéphane Maitec, Dana Maitec, ARCUB Exhibition, Reflections #2, Reflections Maitec, Stéphane Maitec.

https://arcub.ro/reflections-2-de-dana-stephane-maitec/

https://empowerartists.org/en/experiences/the-iconic-artist-couple-dana-stephane-maitec-exhibit-at-arcub/

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