EDOUARD TAUFENBACH & BASTIEN POURTOUT | Le Bleu du Ciel
“March 2020. The Eternal City; Rome is deserted, confined. Only four artists roam the Villa Médici in a foremost deep artistic confinement. Among them, the photography artists Edouard Taufenbach and Bastien Pourtout observe in this unprecedented episode of suspended time: the gradual arrival of the swallows. Intrigued by these birds —which do not exist in the wild but only in human coexistence— they decide to capture their flight, a movement of freedom both in this unprecedented period and forever.
Above the Villa Médici’s fence, the moments stolen from these great migrants follow one another, sometimes cropped, blurred or detailed in what looks like a monochromatic sky, but the intense lavender blue turns to taupe, gold or fiery orange. The colors of the sky come as a call to better observe the granularity of our world.
The intermittent sequencing of the circular flight of the swallows with swirling movements of repetitive music, circulates and embraces the works”.
-Sara Huhounenq, Beaux Arts Magazine, Paris.
Le Bleu du Ciel by Taufenbach and Pourtout was awarded with the Swiss Life Award 2021 and has been exhibited in Arles, Bordeaux & Galerie Nationale Jeu de Paume de Paris. ALMANAQUE has proudly presented the series at Zona Maco Mexico City and Photo London before this special feature for Unseen Amsterdam.
Edouard Taufenbach et Bastien Pourtout. France, 1988 & 1982.
Taufenbach is Master in Arts & Digital Media and Bachelor in Cinema by La Sorbonne (FR). Pourtout is Master in Photography & Contemporary Art by Paris VIII – Saint-Denis FR and Master in Social History at Paris X – Nanterre (FR).
During the 2020’s confinement Taufenbach started to work in duo with Pourtout after winning the pioneer artistic residence La Villa Medici in Rome, where they created Le Bleu du Ciel, winning afterwards with the resulting series the Swiss Life Award for Contemporary Art 2021.
Taufenbach’s is a guest artist at UAL: Camberwell College of Arts, and participated in the group exhibition Moving The Image. In February 2020, ALMANAQUE showed Taufenbach's work in the exhibition Mirage, curated by Arturo Delgado. The same year his book L’Image dans le miroir edited by Maison L'Artier Paris. They have exhibited in national museums and international shows.
Their work as has been published by BBC, The Guardian, The New York Times, Le Monde, Vogue Paris, Vanity Fair, The British Journal of Photography, L'Œil de la Photographie and Le Figaro among many others.