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Catherine Merdy's "2" - Capturing the Urban Rhythms of Life in ParisPosted by finkployd in
Info  Catherine Merdy - French Photographer Exhibition of "2" @ Zico House in Sanayah abstract: Visiting artist's exhibition offers glimpse of urban rhythms of life in Paris, while her newer photos capture a mood of uncertainty in Lebanon. -dailystar Through April 5, 2005 For more information, call +961 3 801688. For more samples of Catherine's work go to: Catherine Merdy Photography Samples by Kaelen Wilson-Goldie
Wednesday, March 30, 2005 French photographer delves into intensity of Beirut BEIRUT: French photographer Catherine Merdy knew she'd be in Beirut this month. She knew she'd be having a show of her work at Zico House on Spears Street, in an old building a block from the Sanayah Garden. She'd arranged the dates, booked a flight and selected scores of pictures - all lush, colorful images capturing the urban rhythms of daily life in Paris and Brussels. She'd paired them in twos and printed them small for easy travel. Furthermore, Merdy knew, during her one-month residency here, she'd be creating a new body of work based on Beirut. It's her thing, her signature, this tracing of a city's movements and textures in photographs. So she packed her bags, slipped a camera into her carry-on and took off. What she didn't know - what she couldn't have planned for or predicted - is that she'd be landing in Beirut at such a volatile time. "When I heard what had happened, I was afraid," Merdy admits. Lebanon's former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri had been killed in a massive explosion that ripped through Beirut's seaside hotel district. Popular protests had brought down the government of his successor, Prime Minister-designate Omar Karami. Merdy arrived as Hizbullah and its allies were preparing a counterdemonstration on Riad al-Solh Square. This seemed to be no time for an artist's anonymous observation of a foreign city's quotidian routine. Beirut's intensity - already palpable under normal circumstances - had been ratcheted up several notches by political crisis, economic destabilization and psychological anxiety. In terms of an emotional atmosphere that could be sensed, the mood had bottomed at grief, peaked at euphoria and lurched at extreme paranoia and jaded cynicism somewhere in between. In terms of a physical environment that could be seen, the streets had flooded with pedestrians who sported newly branded revolutionary signs and slogans and the walls had welcomed a sudden rush of graffiti that bespoke a total shattering of taboos. "I've come for a strange period in Beirut and in Lebanon," says Merdy in low toned, heavily accented English. "At first I was thinking it was not a good idea to come in this period, but now I think it was a good idea, because at first I didn't know much about Lebanese people and now I've come to understand a lot. Now I am not afraid." Merdy, who was born in Brittany, studied cinema at the Ecole Nationale Louis-Lumiere. She has been based in Paris for 20 years, spending much of her time there working in film, operating a camera and doing production. Five years ago, she decided she wanted to return to photography, something she'd loved as a kid, when William Klein and Henri Cartier-Bresson were her heroes. But she realized she'd forgotten how to take pictures. She had lost all sense of technique. So she began messing around with toy cameras - cheap, low-tech, often made out of plastic - such as the Lomo LCA, Lubitel and Holga. "The Lomo," wrote Artforum's Andrew Solomon in 1994, "is a Russian instamatic of dubious quality that takes marginally distorted photos ... It is a totally authentic product of a society in which industrial design stalled under Stalin." The Lomo was essentially a Soviet knock-off of a Japanese mini-camera. Its popularity faded in the 1980s as Communism fell and it seems relegated to gather dust and grow obsolete. But then in the mid-1990s a group of students in Vienna established the Lomographic Society, an organization whose aim is "to study and document the world's surface by taking millions of snapshots of it." Simultaneous Lomographic exhibitions were held in New York and Moscow soon after. Suddenly the Lomo became a lifestyle staple and a hipper-than-thou subculture, replete with cheeky phrases like "Lomo on." Among the "10 Golden Rules of Lomography" are "Don't think," "Be fast" and "Shoot from the hip." (There is a Lomographic Society HQ in Dubai at the hipster boutique Five Green.) If all this sounds a bit cultish, rest assured that Merdy's approach is more measured and pensive. She likes using the Lomo because it means she doesn't have to lug around a lot of gear, such as multiple lenses, filters and flashes. It also means her subjects are less intimidated. The Lomo is roughly the size of one's hand. "I use this camera by choice," she says. "I don't want to have a lot of equipment. And people are not afraid of it." There may be times when Merdy takes a hundred shots a day, but the snapping of pictures is only the first part of her process. The second part involves printing and matching one image with another, making associations and suggesting narratives between them. "When I think I have a lot of pictures," she explains, pausing to find the right verb, "I begin my play." Merdy's exhibition at Zico House is entitled "2," which refers to her overall photographic project since 2000 as well as such notions as love, desire and duplicity. Looking at her paired pictures from Paris, you can sense the cognitive links she makes between images. A photograph of a lip-locked teenage couple, for example, is matched with a picture of snow globes, suggesting innocence, naivete, the fantasy of youth. Clearly, Merdy has an eye for details and gestures. A number of works at Zico House frame the funny ways people hold their hands, cross their feet and tilt their chins. More than the body, though, it is the surface of the city that interests her. "I try to find in a city the light and the colors. You know you're eye is going to see the colors in life, so I try to keep those colors, because life is in those colors," she says. "Sometimes people think I work with a digital camera and that this is all Photoshop but it's not true. I don't like to have pictures immediately. When I take my pictures, sometimes I look through the viewfinder and I know I don't have a good shot. I have it in my mind, maybe it shows up on the print, but if not I still have it in my mind." Merdy began taking pictures in Beirut as soon as she arrived. Such was the immediacy and intensity of the situation that she decided to show four pairs of pictures she took locally. Each is on view in the gallery at Zico House, printed huge on thick vinyl and hung high above the rest. Because Merdy's style feels so accidental, so light, with so much left to chance, her work does not seem parasitic. These are not the photographs of an artist out to capitalize on grief or tragedy. Her juxtapositions are not forced. If, as she suggests, her work is about writing stories between pictures, then these narratives remain generously loose and unfinished. "I wanted to talk about Beirut and Beirut right now is in a strange situation," she says. "Most interesting for me is that people in Beirut are trying to find themselves. Beirut is trying to find itself. I am trying to find myself and my place here. And people I meet are trying to find themselves and their place here. So, you know, it's strange." One particular image in the show has generated a great deal of interest - a close-up shot of a large red heart followed by a question mark, stenciled onto a sandstone wall near the American University of Beirut by artist and designer Rana Maktabi. "I was walking in the street and I saw this," explains Merdy, "and I was like, 'Wow, that's cool.' So I took a picture. And then it became sort of like an obsession in my mind, why did this person do this? My work talks about love, desire, and so on, and this, too, I think. So it fit in my work, but I also wanted to know why. When I put it on the flyer, it was like an invitation to this person to come, and she did." -dailystar Trackbacks
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Blogging Beirut CommentsMon, 14.03.2011 21:53
Firstly, the fines are a perfect deterrant for people. Let me let you in on a little secret: THIS IS CALLED BLIND JUSTICE!!
Lady justice is a perfect dipiction; she wears a "blindfold which r [...]
Mon, 14.03.2011 21:53
Firstly, the fines are a perfect deterrant for people. Let me let you in on a little secret: THIS IS CALLED BLIND JUSTICE!!
Lady justice is a perfect dipiction; she wears a "blindfold which r [...]
Thu, 10.03.2011 13:55
how does someone contact Ziad Baroud? It's not like he's accessible! He's the Interior Minister!
Thu, 10.03.2011 13:41
send this pic to baroud and he will take action
about Naqoura Road Trip
Tue, 08.03.2011 13:56
Love the pictures. Amazing photos and lovely places. Naqoura is my home town and I feel more home sick than ever :)
Sun, 06.03.2011 00:37
i think this song belong's to SabaH's relative cousin i think, his last name faghally i am trying to ramamber his full name, he is lebanese he has another good song goes like,, haw can i live if [...]
Mon, 28.02.2011 01:22
yes, i have to say the best club in lebanon,for the fist year..........
Fri, 25.02.2011 18:21
correct, but you miss the point.
1) the less important point:
technically speaking, you can scan the stub only once, and modify it photoshop also once to produce many stubs to cover the enti [...]
Fri, 25.02.2011 11:06
Interesting! however, for me, the time spent on scanning and photoshoping and printing the ticket is worth more than the 500 LL i was going to pay
Wed, 09.02.2011 06:18
I am an American whose great-grandparents Amen Soffa and his wife Nazera Kimmel (sometimes spelled Lazera Cammel and various other ways) came to America in the late 1800s. I am looking for anyo [...]
Tue, 08.02.2011 23:17
i am from algeria my name is olso berbara jamel..hope you are ok you and your family...
Fri, 28.01.2011 14:34
wow, how'd you stumble upon this?
Fri, 28.01.2011 08:00
We the Native Americans support our brothers and sisters in spirit who are struggling for Freedom and Justice in Egypt.
May the Great Spirit guide and bless your endeavors. El-Hamdallah.
Fri, 28.01.2011 03:26
On fb, an egyptioan guy said he was selected as a finalist on January 26th..I am still waiting for a feedback ..what about your friend ?
Btw, the workshop is in Abu Dhabi :)
Sun, 23.01.2011 14:52
saludos.. yo no soy politico ni hizbi.. soy libanes muhajjar waiting to back to my country libnan sine lon time.. now i know is very dif. situation for you mr president,we hope that you demopstr [...]
Sun, 23.01.2011 13:29
Is it just me or does the first ad aim to enlarge your Balls ?! Who would ever want to do THAT ?!
Thu, 20.01.2011 21:35
Thank you for the information! I was just wondering how much time it takes to give a feedback to the applicants. One of my friends applied by the January 3 deadline and she still didn't get any [...]
Wed, 19.01.2011 12:56
I just stumbled on this review and I totally agree with you. I nicknamed this play the "UNacceptable play" and I still rave about how horrible it was. I love the theatre - but this kind of self- [...]
Fri, 14.01.2011 20:27
Dear Sir
is there more competitions for 2011?
Fri, 14.01.2011 07:47
sannine the best freindly mountain ( allah ylhallih b3id 3an iden the ennemies of pure nature)
Wed, 12.01.2011 22:00
Good work. Money seems to bulldoze beautiful buildings in capitals round the globe. So inspiring to see young people involved in this action.
Nina
Thu, 23.12.2010 11:53
do you have a site to check if I have fine ? because I paid about 12 tickets some are 10,000 and some about 40,000LL .
I called the employee she shsid still 5 tickets ,and it will cost me 200, [...]
Wed, 15.12.2010 22:12
thank you samer for reposting this, i'm honored. notes have been getting amazing feedback! i'm humbled by the whole experience.
i would also like to announce the new "nicer" link which makes [...]
about Les Filles du Basement
Sat, 11.12.2010 02:18
salut
l'amitié c'est savoire tendre l' oreille sans juger .ouvir son coeur ,vraiment l' écouter .partager ensemble ses joies , ses peines est ses doutes aimer sans arriére pensée , juste suivre [...]
about Paul Frank in Lebanon
Wed, 08.12.2010 17:49
That's very good news I didn't know that, I became a fan of Julius the Monkey around 4. However, is this a stand alone store like the one they have in NY, or store that sells Paul Frank. It does [...]
Thu, 25.11.2010 18:44
ra7 ib3atlak wa7ad 3a baytak tay farjeek what ya walad
Thu, 25.11.2010 15:50
So what if this info is available.. In what can it harm you??? People should be able to find out these things... so what hein? so what?>
Wed, 17.11.2010 18:17
If you think facebook is invading your personal privacy don't go online, or get registred. On allmost every site in the world the owner of the site gives you the question "do you accept these te [...]
Tue, 16.11.2010 18:15
Thanks for the post. I have been wondering what is all about the Ehden Reserve. I am just trying to learn as much as I can about Beirut before I come out and visit. I really want to as soon as I [...]
Tue, 16.11.2010 12:17
mabrouk samer and all the best from berlin! sarah
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