FLORENCE PARADEIS - EXPEDITION / SPEDIZIONE

Florence Paradeis was born in 1964 in Antony and now lives and works in Paris.

Florence Paradeis' study focuses on details and on selections of real aspects, which the artist interprets with an artificial and theatrical slant. The atmospheres of her works are sometimes disturbing and absurd, but we are forced to look at them with a strong symbolic and representative impulse.

This is how the artist describes her project for Storie urbane (Urban stories), entitled Expedition / Spedizione:

"The thing I noticed in the town of Reggio Emilia, is the presence of a highly structured and defined historical centre, but once outside the walls an area opens up that is being developed, with a much less structured and much less defined appearance compared with a centre, and which allows you to catch a glimpse the town's future. My sensation, based on the things I noticed during this short visit, is that everything ‘needs to be done', everything is under construction and it seems to me that the crucial question is what the town will be like tomorrow and also how to integrate the historical centre in this new contemporary life. I have reflected on the questions and the idea of the workers in these ‘under construction' scenarios.

My work consists in observing, initially, while only later I feel the need to take action, to go ‘over to the other side'. This is the principal of my work regardless of whether it refers to photography or video. So, I don't remain "immobile" but the time comes when I take action and this action can also be something minimal, and helps to 'move' the image to another level.

I think I will concentrate on the idea of the workers, on their uniforms, for example, by studying the uniform of the female cleaners. So, I would like to go back to this idea of ‘action', because I think this holds the key to interpret what is happening today in this town, in other words, not remaining just passively watching and remaining outside the field, but to take action on real issues in the right way, the way that action is taken to set up a construction site, to build something.

To act, take a step forward, then advance, trying to measure this ‘progress': what has been gained, what has been lost and what has to be lost to be able to go forward. So, I think a moment of ‘zero setting' is needed, and I would like to try, by using photographs and videos to work on this necessary ‘zero setting' status, as if it were a necessary oblivion, which has nothing to do with a 'tabula rasa' on the past, but simply that it is needed like a trampoline to be able to jump. Even if you don't know where you fall and run the risk of falling into an empty, obscure place. It is necessary to abandon, to leave everything behind and move on.

So, my aim is to try to develop a thought, a new approach that is more a 'centred' approach to thinking, and not 'ethnocentred'. A way of thinking via the suburbs, from the outside, through the ramifications and I think it is also a more consistent way of thinking with the movement of products and people, consistent with the XXI century in which we live".

[Extract from the interview made for the video-documentary entitled Molte città, Sguardi diversi (Many towns,Different views), produced for the European Photography Week].

A number of solo exhibitions

• 2004 - Galerie in SITU, Paris
• 2003 - Exposition# 9, Villa Saint-Clair, Ecole des Beaux Arts de Sète, Sète
• 2002 - Espace Jules Verne, Centre d'art contemporain, Bretigny sur Orge
• 2000 - Direct Producteur, Commande photographique, Fos sur Mer
• 2000 - Imago, Rencontres de photographie et de vidéo, Salamanque, Espagne
• 2000 - Centro Galego de Arte Contemporànea, St-Jacques-de-Compostelle, Espagne
• A number of collective exhibitions
• 2004 - Vidéos séquence 1, La Maison des Arts de Malakoff, Malakoff
• 2004 - Douce France. Visions de la France à travers la collection de la caisse des dépôts et consignations, Centre culturel de Lisbonne Culturgest
• 2004 - Regarde, il neige (schizogéographie de la vie quotidienne), Centre d'art, Vassivière-Limousin
• 2004 - Un Air de Famille, centre de la photographie de Lectoure
• 2003 - Home sweet home, Centre photographique d'Ile de France, Pontault-Combault
• 2003 - Compilation ?, Maison Populaire, Montreuil
• 2003 - Trois temps d'exposition, Le Plateau, Paris
• 2003 - Vingt ans des FRAC, Arles
• 2003 - Florence Paradeis - Véronique Boudier, FRAC Basse-Normandie
• 2003 - Pain Bénit, Image au Centre
• 2002 - Voilà la France, CESAC, Caraglio, Italie
• 2002 - Disturb, 1 st public School of Hydra, Grèce
• 2002 - Récits, Abbaye Saint-Andre / C.A.C. Meymac
• 2002 - Living together, Maison populaire, Montreuil
• 2001 - Scéne de la vie conjugale, Villa Arson, Nice
• 2001 - 9° Biennale de l'Image en Mouvement, programme hors compétition, Saint-Gervais Genève
• 2001 - Unheard of, Cuchifritos art gallery/ Project space, New-York
• 2001 - The privileged eye, The apartment, Athenes
• 2001 - F.Paradeis / P.Pouvreau, Ecole supèrieure des Beaux-Arts de Toulouse
• 2001 - J-L Moulène, F.Paradeis, Beat Streuli, W.Tillmans, Ecole supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Cornouaille, Quimper
• 2001 - Les intérieurs du monde, commande photographique, Zaanstad, Pays-Bas
• 2001 - Azerty, un abécédaire autour des collections du FRAC Limousin, Centre Pompidou, Paris
• 2000 - Ici a commencé l'épanchement du songe, Centre d'Art Passerelle, Brest
• 2000 - Je ne suis pas une Pénélope, Espace Culturel François Mitterand, Beauvais
• 2000 - Galerie Casey Kaplan, New-York
• 2000 - Présumés innocents, CAPC, Bordeaux
• 2000 - Guillaume Janot - Florence Paradeis, Galerie Ipso Facto, Nantes

Collections

• Fonds National d'art Contemporain, Paris
• Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations, Paris
• FRAC Limousin, Limoges
• FRAC Pays de la Loire, Nantes
• FRAC Languedoc- Roussillon, Montpellier
• Los Angeles Contemporary Museum of Art
• Fonds Municipal d'Art Contemporain, Paris

Catalogues

• Imago 2000, éditions Universidad Salamanca, texte Amparo Lozano
• Florence Paradeis, éditions Centro Galego De Arte Contemporanea, Xunta de Galicia, 2000, texte Alberto Martin
• Azerty, un abécédaire autour des collections du FRAC Limousin, éditions Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris
• Les années 90, Anne Bonny, éditions du Regard, 2000
• Action, on tourne, éditions Villa Arson / Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 2001
• Création en France, la scène contemporaine, éditions Autrement, texte Alexandre Castant, 2002
• Florence Paradeis, Espace Jules Verne, Centre d'Art Contemporain, Bretigny sur Orge, 2003 photogallery Paradeis