Paris Photo 2006

Mai Duong : the journey of women, the turmoil of men.
October 30th
-November 26th
2006
Curator: Philippe Gelot
Around the conception of the book, mock-ups are exhibited. In big formats collecting the pages in
posters, Mai Dong is a paper lover, her work is indivisible from its medium. Just like a researcher, she
evolves through the new printing techniques. Everything is calculated, every detail is observed, the
material is here. A rare and precious, limited edition artist’s book is presented. Emancipated from
traditional bibliophilic criteria: the book turns into a collection of images. Photographs, sheets of
paper, and page layout are fashioned until creating a one-of-the-kind art book, a limited edition.
“Unpretentiously/ warmly intimate atmosphere/ collects people in the same way animals or people
would be collected. Groupings of women bodies. Displays the ghostly presence of the bodies/
framings that fragment and isolate/ inner sensations mirrored, interpretation of occurred events –
actual or imaginary-, it is this test-space that reflects the form of expression, like the free
associations, produced by the author.
Space moved around thanks to manipulation of appearances/ called upon by the outside world,
everything is photographed on the same level bodies, still life, animals, flowers/ culture of the gaze,
without boundaries between the true and the fake, the original the classic, the common and the
unique/ Borderline between life and the object, I amuse myself taking pictures of objects like they
were living beings/ play from real to fake, distort reality/ Free, every universe pushes her into make
up a scenario/ Her common thread is her camera/ Passion for books, for paper, for mock-up books/
We all want a picture book/ as a reflection topic, the image is almighty–the author thinks with her
eye/ sometimes the text becomes caption, sometimes it skirts around the picture to have a life by
itself/ the pictures are dependent on an emotional state, the intimate laws of the photographic
journal puts them in order/ women and animals, women and plants, the text and the image/ the
photograph and life refer to one another” Mai Duong.
Left page:
The Human Nature,
October 2000

Right page:
Sentimental instincts,
December 2000.

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