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Brasília, Modernist Utopias

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Brasília, Modernist Utopias Catalogue Vincent Fournier, solo show Brasília, Modernist Utopias at Atelier Jespers Avenue du Prince Héritier 149, B-1200 Brussels 14.11.2019 - 12.01.2020 Preview days 14-15.11.2019, 1- 5pm Vernissage 16.11.2019, 2-10pm Finissage Weekend, 10-11.01.2020 - 1-5pm, Sunday Brunch on 12.01.2020 - 12-4pm in the presence of the Artist Vincent Fournier © Hugo Denis-Queinic© Hugo Vincent Fournier is a French artist who explores signifi cant mythologies of the future: space exploration, utopian architecture, artifi cial intelligence, living transformation… After being awarded a diploma in both sociology and visual arts, he studies at the National School of Photography in Arles and obtains his diploma in 1997. His works can be found in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET) in New York, the Centre Pompidou Paris, the LVMH contemporary Art collection, the Dragonfl y Collection in Massignac, the Museum of Fine Arts of Mâcon, Fondation Bullukian in Lyon, the ArtScience Museum in Dublin or the Baccarat Hotel Collection in New-York, among others. 2 3 VINCENT FOURNIER About the exhibition Brasília, Freeze Frame of a Future Past Spazio Nobile presents Brasília, Modernist Utopias Interview of Vincent Fournier by Christian Larsen by French photographer at Atelier Jespers in the in TL Mag 31, 2019, Pro Materia framework of Brussels Photo Festival. 10 photographs have been carefully selected by In this interview with Christian Larsen, Deputy Vincent Fournier and Spazio Nobile which works Curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New in dialogue with the Modernist interior architecture York, artist photographer Vincent Fournier speaks of Atelier Jespers founded and run by Jean-François about the futuristic vision of the Brazilian capital: Declercq. Brasília. Brasília, a Time Capsule by Vincent Fournier Christian Larsen: How was your interest in Brasília born? Was it part of a broader project to photograph My work on the city of Brasilia comes from a mixture utopian cities, or were you interested in the Brazilian of fascination and nostalgia for the stories and capital itself? representations of the Future. Indeed, the city and capital of Brazil designed by Oscar Niemeyer, and Vincent Fournier: Brasília is a unique city. It is beautiful which was built in 4 years in the middle of a desert, and fascinating how the entire city was conceived and embodies the vision of the future of in the 1960s. created with the same aesthetic, the same coherence. What The “pilot plan”, conceived in 1957 by the planner rigor and what madness! It is also a very special case Lucio Costa, coincided with the beginning of the because in just four years, the architect Oscar Niemeyer space age and the first artificial satellite of Earth: and the urban planner Lucio Costa have literally birthed Sputnik. This was the golden age of the space age, this city in the middle of the desert. It’s a capital oasis, and the city of Brasilia, with its air of flying saucer- an island like Thomas More’s Utopia book. My interest like architecture that seemed to have landed in the in Brasilia also comes from my passion for stories and middle of nowhere, shows the nostalgia and the representations that question the future. All my projects, dream of a future frozen in time. The case is unique space exploration, humanoid robots, the transformation in its size and scope, an entire city, and by its state of of living by technology or even utopian architecture show conservation, the pilot plan of the city has remained the future in a historical perspective. I went to Brasília unchanged because of its UNESCO World Heritage with this idea in mind. Indeed, the genesis of the Brazilian designation. Brasilia, a fossilised modernist temple capital coincides with the beginning of the space age and in a utopian future, asserts itself as a time capsule. the aesthetics of the city is largely inspired. Some buildings I used the city as a backdrop for this series of work, look like real flying saucers and the entire city can be seen one in which its own inhabitants were part of the as a huge spaceship. Discovering the very linear aspect of staging. During my travels I kept coming back to the Brasilia, where, as Lucio Costa wrote, «the sky is the sea stories of Jorge Luis Borges and the strange empire of the city,» I decided to take only horizontal images. The whose map covers the city; (Fictions, 1946), by Dino tall buildings on stilts gave me the impression that it islike Buzzatti and the idea of time on the run (The Desert a city that can stand. It is therefore a very cinematographic of the Tartars, 1940), or the movie, “The Truman framing that I adopted, as if I shot a long shot sequence. Show”, by Peter Weir (1988) whose hero lives in an illusion. Finally, we must also mention the breath- taking and crazy beauty of the city of Brasilia where absolutely everything is composed with the same writing: linear, precise, minimal, fluid, radical, aerial, monumental, musical … 4 VINCENT FOURNIER 5 VINCENT FOURNIER Christian Larsen: I had the same impression as you: Instead of bringing the people together in a shared space, that of a vast horizontal landscape. Its buildings, as Oscar Niemeyer wanted, the city separated them and its proportions, everything seems to highlight the moved away from each other. This contradiction is found horizon, like a vanishing point. Your choice of a in Thomas More’s Utopia Island, whose perfection is horizontal format therefore seemed very wise. I largely based on the standardization of all its elements, imagine that you went first to discover the buildings at once geographical, architectural and human. In Utopia and their spaces. Your selection suggests that Island there is no diversity, the inhabitants all live the you have not encountered any surprises; did you same existence, work the same number of hours and live in ever manage to enter a building and be struck by a the same houses. moment of fleeting beauty that you had never seen in photography? We know, for example, the Itamaraty Christian Larsen: Everything is rationally subdivided spiral staircase, but Athos Bulcão’s lattice is rarely into sectors, which separate the population rather seen, which forms a screen / spatial and visual barrier than integrate it into its multiple activities. The at its summit. What do you think? shopping centres are thus isolated from residential areas, or superquadras, themselves away from Vincent Fournier: Your vision of a city whose architecture administrative and government buildings. This type highlights a vanishing point is very interesting. From this of organisation seemed to me very close to modernist point of view, Brasília is hypnotic because the eye is always thought, but far removed from socialism, to which attracted by the horizon. It is both an experience of the Oscar Niemeyer nevertheless adhered. It also body and thought. Indeed, the body is soothed because contrasts with Jane Jacobs’ judicious observations of when we look at the line of the horizon, our optic nerve is street animation, where diferent commercial, social, at rest, but this distant gaze also invites us to think about professional and recreational activities coexist at any the future. In this respect, the future word in Latin is time of the day or night. The wealth of a city lies in formulated as «coming». This is what happens, what will the plurality of people and activities that occupy the come: ad venturus. same space at the same time. The subdivision of all these functions and their partitioning into sectors Christian Larsen: At the sight of some photographs thus gives the urban experience a strangely hollow one feels both an overwhelming feeling of emptiness and military tone. One feels easily alone in a city and the luxury of practically having the entire city whose long horizontal stretches set the proportions. for oneself. This type of space often gives me an Very surreal, Brasília does not remind me less Los impression of loneliness. Angeles. Costa and Niemeyer considered that the city centre would be based on a motorized lifestyle: Vincent Fournier: It is true; in the architecture of Brasilia the distances are calculated for cars and no one the void is part of the general plan. It is a continuous moves on foot. But these photographs seem to be dialogue between full and empty. In fact, the space of more interested in architecture and spatial planning the city is so rationalised that even the empty places are than in urban planning. Did you ask these lonely integrated as so many units in the large plot of the overall characters to pose for you, or were they just there plan. Everything rests on a very geometric and abstract at that moment? The photograph of the National conception of space, as if the mathematical universe Theatre gives the impression that you asked this absorbed the physical universe. It’s a very strange feeling. man to go up there for you. Did you think that these There is indeed the feeling of being alone in a large solitary spaces needed to be animated by one or setting that reminds me of the news of Jorge Luis Borges more characters? «Fictions» where «a map of the Empire had the format of the Empire and coincided with him, point by point «. This impression of isolation contradicts the original project. VINCENT FOURNIER 6 VINCENT FOURNIER 7 These characters were there and I asked them if they Take the example of the superquadras, where people were agreed to let themselves be led and played a role.
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