Au fil de soi[e] - Travel on silk road

2007 03 Février 03 Mars Art en Vue 70, rue des lombards Belgique 1000 Bruxelles

Dear Madame, Sir, I have the pleasure to inform you that the gallery Art en Vue has opened its doors in Brussels in December 2006 in the quarter of the Grand Place, with the function of simultaneously exposing French furniture of the 20th century and the works of young artists, willing to share their creations. The creator, Moez Snoussi, developed a passion for French furniture with a specific emphasis for the period 1930-1960. Primarily originating from private collections, the pieces of furniture (Jaques Adnet, Jean-Charles Moreux, Charlotte Perriand, Jean Michel Franck, Rrbus, Drouet)of an innovative and classic style combine sobriety and utility. More than an art gallery, Art en Vue is a place of exchange for young artists who can express themselves freely in different disciplines: painting, photography, sculptures and video. The first exhibition of painting and video "face à face" of the artist Nathalie Lacroix finished February 2nd 2007. The next exhibition with photos of Loic Vizzini with the title "au fil de soi(e)" will take place from February 4th to March 2nd 2007 with a vernissage on February 15rd 2007 at 6.00pm. Loic Vizzini: Born in 1981 in Vienne (France), he lives and works in Paris. After studying photography and history of art, he quickly became an independent photographer. In 2000 he embarked on a work on the Silk Route. At the same time he undertakes different photographic projects including "Passanger", or "Le Lac Baïkal". He was also a finalist for a talent grant for his work on Mongolia and the splendour of communism. Whether Pakistan and China or Mongolia, it is a continuous questioning around the people and their thousand of years long migrations on the Silk Route, which dominates the work of this young photographer and which represents his personality. How do they live? What do they do? Who are they? Through time and the continuity of landscapes on the Silk Route, one can observe with astonishment the people's physical evolution: faces changing progressively, and new ethnics like the Bouriates in the South of Siberia, a marginalized civilization midway between Russia and Mongolia, or the Ouigours, a population with a hybrid politic identity, neither Chinese nor Pakistani, but with a physical and cultural identity which seems to be the meeting point of these two populations. The blend of populations, continuous movement of mankind, is undeniably the strongest place for transmissions. Whatever the order of knowledge, of ideas, of culture, religion or morphology, these intersected heritages produced and still produce a deep influence on the history and the civilization of people from Eurasia. The religions cross each other, more or less pacifically, Buddhism, Catholicism, the Muslims, orthodoxes merge, or confront each other and hybrid beliefs are not rarely found: Christian icons co-exist with Ganesh on the backboard of a taxi. Religion is an important domain and at the basis of communication on the Silk Route. As Loic Vizzini knows: "It was one of the questions I was asked most often. What is your religion? And I didn't necessarily know how to tell them without distressing them. I don't have a religion, I'm atheist. It was quite difficult for them to understand how I could live without any belief as for them it is part of their daily life. The choice of a religion is so much linked to identity that my position appeared questionable to them, it is necessary to choose my community because not to believe in God, I was repeatedly told, meant not being able to go to paradise. Since the subject was rather delicate, I tried each time to find a solution to change the subject. It was the best way, I believe, not to be assimilated into one community but to be effortlessly accepted in all of them." Along with his work, the photographer evolved with the people, the habits, the religions and these mixture became his own mixture. This photographic work is equally a work on himself, a questioning, a incessant evolution, and maybe even a spiritual and physical risk. This Silk Route is in fact marked with dangerous and crisis zones like Pakistan, in the entrance of the tribal zone, a valley which was for a long time the only passageway between Afghanistan and Pakistan. His work is particularly centered on the light, which he observes, captures, molds, and reflects, in order to get on the film all the subtleties, all the intimacies like the scene of the praying child next to his sister in a youre in Mongolia. The light is hard; it intensifies the scene rendering it soft and voluptuous. In the digital era, Loic Vizzini proves marginality as he made classical photography his only tool, traditional material for a classic but equally whimsical methodology; however it is this raw material, without alteration, without reframing, pure expression of a photographer's eye, which he wishes to preserve. It was not only his passion which was discovered by this method but also the one of reporter-photographers which he admires the most. Big names of photography like Willima Eugène Smith, Robert Capa, Sébastao Salgado, Stanley Greene, James Nachtway knew to enrich his vision and nourish his passion. "To write with light" is the meaning of the word photography, and it is the very same term which he uses to enjoy the moment, the ambiance, to stop time. His photographic work finally is a multiple quest which comprises documentary, ethnography and the esthetics of light. It is an initiatic route around a historic itinerary, follow the silk, meet, try to understand and capture the image of the other, and bit by bit, make himself. I hope to have captured your attention on this exhibition and I wish you my very best regards. Moez Snoussi