ABOUT THE WORK

The (Re)Construction of reality in Chinese and French Contemporary Documentary Photography (1990 to 2010)

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Starting from an observation concerning the similarities between France and China regarding the emergence of a photography qualified as Contemporary or Experimental, the thesis aims to shed light on the way in which time, in connection with the commitment of artists influences the development of new photographic forms and writings, in the field of documentary. This comparative and practice-based study cover the period from the 1990, starting point, to 2010, in order to observe the expansion of artistic practices during this period. It looks at their main characteristics, compared to those that preceded them, at the development of the art market, and analyzes in a global way the major evolutions of society, in relation to the experience of artists and the resonance on their creations. For this, it verify the application of a typology of three regimes, or documentary systems, borrowed from literature (melancholic, critical and fabulatory). Through a selection of six works distributed following the three systems, each relates one French and one Chinese artist, combined with the analysis of my photographic practice providing an additional sample for study. The whole make it possible to bring out the main writing techniques and aesthetic characteristics, and to lay down the outlines of the approaches leading to the notion of documentary, while carrying out a clarification concerning the borders between reality and fiction as well as the function of document contained in the works.