Paris Photo 2019

Slides revival

The project brings together Sebastian Riemer and Morgaine Schäfer, two artists of the next generation of the famous « Ecole de Dusseldorf ». Sebastian studied under the mastership of Thomas Ruff, Morgaine with Christopher Willams. In the series here presented, both artists appropriate slides, paying tribute to a quite abandoned technique to give it a new dimension. When Sebastian works on the collective use of slides to illustrate art history for the audience, Morgaine Schäfer returns to his personal story by recalling the place of slides in the private sphere.
Questioning the medium in an always renewed search to reveal the materiality of the image with objectivity, Riemer uses found slides, including the written mentions on the white frame. After a long technical process starting with a projection on the wall, he finalizes the prints in a very large size. Schäfer selfportraits investigates her own history, posing with a slide representing her family. An ungoing quest to recover her personality that is translated in various figures of herself.