Grand Tour Revisited | F&D CARTIER in New York
The work of artist duo F&D Cartier combines the talent and vision of sculptor Françoise and photographer Daniel Cartier. The two began working in collaboration in 1995 and began exhibiting as F&D Cartier in 1998. The exhibition Grand Tour Revisited created in 2014 features a body of work that transforms the traditional trip of Europe by juxtaposing nineteenth century black/white slides with contemporary color digital images of F&D Cartier’s own travels. Discovered by the Cartier’s in a market in Switzerland, the nineteenth century slides by photographer Johannes Ganz depict the original Grand Tour in Italy.
Roma Kaunas II, 2014, Ultrachrome pigment inkjet print © f&d cartier
f&d cartier
Grand Tour Revisited
April 6 – May 1, 2016
elizabeth houston gallery
New York
PR Info _ The work of artist duo F&D Cartier combines the talent and vision of sculptor Françoise and photographer Daniel Cartier. The two began working in collaboration in 1995 and began exhibiting as F&D Cartier in 1998. The exhibition Grand Tour Revisited created in 2014 features a body of work that transforms the traditional trip of Europe by juxtaposing nineteenth century black/white slides with contemporary color digital images of F&D Cartier’s own travels. Discovered by the Cartier’s in a market in Switzerland, the nineteenth century slides by photographer Johannes Ganz depict the original Grand Tour in Italy.
An educational rite of passage in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries traditionally reserved for upper class European and American young men of means, the Grand Tour has since been extended to include more of the middle class. The effect of increased rail and steamship travel making the journey less of a financial burden, combined with the popularity of Thomas Cook’s “tours” and 1873 book of traveling timetables for “tourists” ushered in the age of mainstream “TOURISM”.
Produced with conceptual vision and antique subjects, Grand Tour Revisited embodies the twenty year tradition of F&D Cartier to elevate found objects. Revealing dreamlike connotations poetically shifting between current existence and historical appearance as in Napoli, Kaunas two frames are seamlessly united into one. As a result, Christ merges with a palm tree while a golden staff rising from an abandoned Lithuanian church photographed in the twenty-first century pierces up into nineteenth century Naples. A muted grey audio speaker subtly reminds us of the present, creating a bridge between timeframes and breaking the historical structure of the Grand Tour through unexpected visual pairings and compositions.
Info + illus. courtesy elizabeth houston gallery
