Veranstaltungsreihe „Art & the Moving Image” der Abteilung für Medientheorie,
Univ.Prof. Dr. Gabriele Jutz.
In 1998, when the Swiss artist duo F&D
Cartier was awarded the prestigious Prix Jordi for the project A-Venir (To-come), the end of photography had just been proclaimed;
post-photography and post-Internet art followed. It was precisely at this moment that F&D Cartier developed a concept
that reduced the photographic process to its basic components – photosensitive paper and light itself. Untreated black-and-white
photographic paper was to be installed as monochrome sheets in the exhibition space.
“In the conscious realization that the end of the era of silver gelatin papers was approaching, we decided to use
it as a simple method with which to record time and inscribe light. Beyond this our aim is to ask questions about the potential
of (unexposed or unused) photographic papers and the uncaptured or unfinished images that are implicit with them. We have
brought these images to life, but rather than fixing them, we observe the process of their constant transformation.” Twenty-five
years later, this methodology remains a constant for F&D Cartier’s work, as their latest publication, The Never Taken
Images, exemplifies.
Françoise Cartier, visual artist, Daniel, photographer,
live in Biel/Bienne, Switzerland.
Françoise and Daniel had established individual careers
before merging their fields in the 1990s, exhibiting as a duo.
