Delphine Diallo – Divine

Hypothetical Death Of Exarchian Alpha offers the reader the opportunity to read the sociological, historical, and political upheavals of a country, Greece, through the epigraphy on the walls of a neighborhood that has the added distinction of being one of the historical foci of the anarchist movement in Athens. This book is composed of four parts: - the diary of the author who immerses himself in the environment of his study, - the collection of photographs of Alpha letters found on the walls of the neighborhood - the different Alpha letters isolated from their context to keep only their form and their typographic interest in relation to their hypothetical death (disappearance) - a sequence of mini-disappearance scenarios e.g. Alpha disappears under a #stayhome poster, Alpha is covered by a graffiti, Alpha is covered by a poster offering courses to refugees, Alpha is ripped off by a priest, etc. The study revolves around the idea of the disappearance of the letter Alpha from the neighborhood of Exarchia and gives awareness that every thing or fact observed can be transformed by the observer. This research, transcended by the multifaceted aspect of daily life and the destinies that intersect on the walls of the neighborhood, is embodied in a graphic and anthropological detective story. The investigation Hypothetical Death Of Exarchian Alpha, while focusing on a neighborhood on a micro scale, reflects broader realities on a macro scale: the turmoil and metamorphoses that cross a country and which are not without echoing the current situation in Europe.

" 1+1 = 3. It's written on the window of a women's underwear store presenting, hanging on clotheslines, pretty little panties. For the price of two, you get three. And in front of the window, an elderly couple observes this offer which, at first sight, was not addressed to them but which nevertheless fascinates them. It's a photo of Franck Gérard. It's all him. A situation that could have been staged but which is very real, well framed, clear, without any headaches, just delightful." Jean Blaise En l'état is an evolving work, a work in progress, begun on July 13, 1999 after Franck Gérard almost died. Since that date, the artist's photographic practice has radically changed: the image has become a vital, incessant act, and the thousands of photographs accumulated have come to constitute a state of seeing the world, also posing a state of the world. The notion of abundance, of too many images, asserts a presence in the world based on perception. Through an observation as methodical as hazardous of the real, linked to the wandering of the artist in the public space, Franck Gerard captures situations, without apriori nor preliminary: offering just "what he sees". More of an observer than an interventionist, the photographer's eye draws up, territory after territory, city after city, a veritable lexicon with a universal vocation where the slightest incongruous gesture, the slightest banal or extraordinary situation, the slightest incident, are listed as so many states constituting our daily life, and through it, the very movement of the world as it goes, as it is. 21 authors were invited by the artist to react to this photographic set: Dominique A, Philippe Bazin, Jean-Christophe Béchet, Jean Blaise, Ronan Bouroullec, Blandine Chavanne, Gilles Clément, Julie Corteville, Olivier Delavallade, Françoise de Maulde, Raymond Depardon, François Hébel, Jean-Yves Jouannais, Jacques Leenhardt, Laurent Le Bon, David Moinard, Jean-Luc Moulène, Michel Poivert, Mélanie Rio, Guy Tortosa, Felice Varini.