Rustle of waiting: the disturbing portraits of Lise Sarfati
“Lise Sarfati”, Rose Gallery Los Angeles, Fall 2020.
Lise Sarfati studied Russian at the Sorbonne before embarking on a career as a photographer. She was for a time the official photographer of the Academy of Fine Arts before joining the Villa Médicis Hors les Murs in the 80’s and then living in Russia for ten years where she focused on the life of young adults. She then joined the Magnum Agency and moved to Los Angeles.
His works are presented in important museums dedicated to his art: Los Angeles Country Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris, Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, Philadelphia Museum of Art.
His photographs are published in several books including “Acta Est” (Phaidon), “The New Life” (Twin Palms), “SHE” (Twin Palms). She now divides her life between Los Angeles and Paris. Her work always remains centered on the daily life of women who are seized in a universe where reality is doubled – as in Lynch’s work – by a vision where reality imperceptibly comes out of its hinges.
Hence the mystery suggested by his portraits. They sometimes seem to be taken from films where anxiety becomes the sister of dreams. The atmosphere remains strangely calm but seems filled with risk and anxiety. This is what gives the work a character as enigmatic as it is poetic.
Almost torn from the sun, about to be buried in the cities or deserts of California, the models of the creator are nevertheless attracted by the inaccessible movement of light and subjected to infinite questioning, testimony of disappointments of which we will ignore everything. They remain in the mystery of their own presences and in the rustle of waiting for the photographer’s “iron” to seem to return.
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