 Since 2005, Gabriel Coutu-Dumont has put together a considerable photographic body of work made up of thousands of pictures taken on various continents. The artist continued to elaborate this corpus during creation residencies in Quebec, which allowed him let the Sketches of Synchronicity project take on a variety of shapes. Actually, this photographic installation is designed to be both generic and adjustable according to the particular configuration of each exhibition site. For this presentation at galerie Clark, which marks the culmination of the entire production, the artist gathered works that highlight the multiple formal possibilities of Sketches of Synchronicity and expose the multifaceted dimension of the project.
This last series of works reaffirms the experimental and processual approach of Coutu-Dumont's photographic practice, because this is primarily about a long-term research, a time-based laboratory. This laboratory is dedicated to photographic material, to its presence as a self-referential modality. The medium's fundamental elements-light, print surface, film, etc.-are studied, diverted or made apparent in a variety of forms, including the light-box, metal supports, and cut-outs in the negative. The research process is also underlined by implicit allusions to the selection process, repetition and error. The work Récif, a print on aluminum representing driftwood by the ocean, appears in the manner of a big sketch, a crumpled up photograph thrown on the ground. Yet, it can also refer to its content-the maritime environment, and by the same token evoke a boulder. According to the artist “the key to the image is contained in the image itself and in its presentation.” It is in this unity split between the medium's self-referentiality and representation that one of the central parameters of synchronicity can be drawn out: the simultaneous occurrence of at least two realities or events without logical explanation and causal relation.
Aseman Sabet
Translated by B.A.S.
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