18 March - 30 April 2004
For his first personal exhibition in France, Philippe Mazaud gives a good example of the ambivalence of photography , neither nature nor artefact , by showing how ordinary reality can become a set-like landscape staged by night only.
With his work on landscapes at night, Philippe Mazaud creates some confusion : is it plain or staged reality ?
Philippe Mazaud
Doll House, 2000/2001,
40.6 x 50.8 cm


Deserted peripheries are his favourite field of observation . He sees in them “  alien worlds from which life is absent ... Artificial worlds certainly, yet appearing to exist for no human purpose, thus paradoxically taking on a quasi “ natural ” quality . Empty parking lots , their lunar appearance , are particularly attracting ”
Fascinated by “  the staged appearance that certain places can somehow take on at night ”, he tries to “ suggest an empty stage, and in that sense, there is a degree of theatricality to some of the pieces. The scenes are in fact merely found, and everything is shot in available light .. ”
Philippe Mazaud views as fundamental “a tension and ambiguity inherent to the photographic work in its being at once a trace and a transformation, a record and a construct. Notions of “ directness ” and “ truthfulness ”, often attributed either in praise or as a put-down of a photograph’s presumed straightforward relation to external reality, have really always been somewhat problematic, and they are now becoming more so. In fact, there is a derealizing capacity of photography which is of interest to me. ”


Philippe Mazaud was born in New York, USA.
Secondary education in New York, then in France. Went to univervity in Paris ,Sorbonne, and briefly attended Paris National Art College.Then back to New York at New york studio School (painting, sculpture). Several years later, he got a PhD in mathematics (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1997, topology).
Last exhibitions :
2005 Foley Gallery, New York
2005 OXS Gallery, Nevada Arts Council
2004 Galerie Anne Barrault, Paris
2003 MacNamara Gallery (University of Nevada), Night Vision
2003 Sheppard Fine Art Gallery (UNR).
2002 SF Camerawork (San Francisco CA)

Thanks to the help of the Ministry of Culture and Communication -National Centre for plastic arts -
FIACRE ( a help for the first exhibition)
Philippe Mazaud
Stll, 2000/2001,
40.6 x 50.8 cm