Oliver Richon

OLIVIER RICHON: Artist, and professor of Photography at the Royal College of Art. Olivier Richon’s work addresses various themes such as the desire for the exotic, the pleasures of imitation, the function of the object in the still life, quotation and appropriation of art history. These are slow images, where time stands still. Anti-naturalistic, they address the dream-like nature of representation as a frozen tableau, which may be deciphered slowly in the manner of a hieroglyph, yet which resists interpretation.

- Swiss artist that has been exhibiting for over twenty years
- Has always been fascinated by the page- Laurence Stern's first modernist work had a complete black page for pg. 61- alluded to an excess of writing 'a black page soaked in ink'
- Reminded him of photographic darkness- not meant to be read as text but you can do
- His work is not triggered by the image but by the allegorical reading- Platonic idea of imitation
- Multiplication of copies- 'mimesis'- Richon's realm of art
- Velasquez's painting- very allegorical- excess of signs to be deciphered- 'melancholic burden to show all the signs'
- Interested in how to paint or capture emptiness as a content
- Made a sign for 'Inventing', which commissioned him to create a design for a large billboard in America- His two signs read:

The unveiling of the presence of nothing and The concealment of the absence of nothing

- Follows his idea that photographic images always have an absence, something which is outside the image- the signs were therefore a commentary on advertising
- Richon's work also addresses the Still Life genre- a genre about closeness, that dispenses with people and landscape, and focuses solely on the close-up, a world of objects
- I thought his reasons for shying away from depicting the human figure were particularly accurate- 'humans still the show, everything then becomes an attribution to the human'
- Uses a direct image for inspiration- the table in a still life becomes organised as a microcosm
- The trompe l'oeil effect is used to destabilise the viewer

- Colour functions in an allegorical context- sometimes mirroring the correct colour function, other times also using colour to destabilise the viewer

- The use of colour also follows the gender differention- colour= feminine (the make-up artifice)/ drawing= masculine (monochromatic, basic structure)

- Richon loves how the appearance of an image can be 'out of place' or deceptive, through concealment- why he uses front projection devices

- Idea was inspired by Robert Morris' 'Steam Sculpture', 1995- the work inscribed a temporality, Richon's 'Bubble' photograph was a response to Morris' work

- More recently, Richon has been influenced by the work of Braco Dimitrijevic, who has been using live animals in his installation works since 1981. His following exhibition in the Ménagerie du Jardin des Plantes in Paris, placed twenty of his works in cages with zoo animals, such as lions, jaguars, dromedaries, crocodiles and bison- Richon likes the added dimension of danger to Dimitrijevic's work

- Richon has begun branching away from using controlled, inanimate objects in his studio setting, and has recently begun placing placards outdoors and photographing them

- Richon also touched upon his thoughts regarding studio space, which has been a discussion in our weekly seminars. He stated that studios were strange places, as you can bring things in, but it is only alive when lit. It has no prior reality and as an artist you are working within 'a rogue space'