Hamburg Kennedy Photographs is pleased to present our first solo exhibition of Paul Vinet "Stories," on view in the Chelsea gallery from April 9 – May 17, 2015. Opening Reception will take place April 9th 6-8pm at 514 W25th Street, 3Fl.
For his most recent series, Paul Vinet created still life arrangements using objects that his parents kept for decades in the basement of their Paris home. Many of these objects were broken, but had been stored religiously. After his father's death, the basement was to be cleaned out; a wallet his father carried for years, a collection of sunglasses, a sculpted cane handle from Indochina, starched white collars or hotel stickers from Damas, Kyoto or Kolkatta. Vinet was able to photograph these mementos before they were discarded. The collected works in “Stories” examines the “death” of materials through loss of function, decay or disintegration, or how death and the past can be reframed in the present to create a new narrative.
Paul Vinet, "Mono," 2013. C-print and gold leaf mounted on Dibon. Ed of 5+1AP
The boxes, as well as the basement hallway, were photographed “as is” without changing content or the arrangement, a way of honoring his father “composition”. Objects were arranged by the artist with the intention to create new stories, inviting visitors to both literally and metaphorically dig in their own family “junk” and see what interesting stories can be discovered and told. Carefully chosen objects were photographed in a kind of totem composition, recreating his own sacred accumulation of his father’s accumulation. In playing with the different way to display these old objects, Vinet creates poignant visual juxtapositions- conveying the full emotion and meaning these unanimated objects carry.
Paul Vinet, "Abundance," 2013. C-print and gold leaf mounted on Dibon. Ed of 5+1AP
Paul Vinet born in 1969 in Paris, works and lives in New York. He has shown in galleries in New York, Paris, Brussels and Washington DC and at Museum Arthur Batut in Toulouse (France). His education was completed in Paris where he earned two bachelor’s degrees, one in graphic design from Academie Charpentier and one in Art History from Ecole du Louvre with an emphasis in contemporary art and a master’s degree, also completed at the Louvre, is in Museum Studies
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