David FATHI
The dead rule the living
To 27 May
Rencontres de la jeune photographie internationale 2023
Auguste Comte used to say “The dead govern the living”. A phrase he considers idealistic, it is the best of past generations that endures.
What remains of Comtean Positivism today? The rise of fascism, climate change, growing economic inequality, the atomic threat. Popular culture tirelessly repeats and feeds on itself, and the dead seem to rule us, like a past that weighs on the present.
This work, originally conceived in-situ for the Maison Auguste Comte, is reimagined here. Found videos of bare-knuckle battles between politicians illustrate the political impasse in an endless loop, like a shapeless tide of zombies in ties and cufflinks.
Music: Frédéric D. Oberland
Practical information
Biography
“Two approaches to understanding the world”. This is how David Fathi describes his common thread. With a Master’s degree in Mathematics & Computer Science, he combines his artistic practice with a career in engineering, with the same attraction for science and the limits of knowledge. His work with images, whether photographic or video, draws on a wide variety of archives and image banks, depending on the subject, bringing his appropriationist work to the frontiers of documentary and contemporary art. Particularly fond of strange or incongruous facts, David Fathi often approaches them with a piquant sense of humor. By hijacking images, he reveals the discrepancies and absurdities contained in the stories he makes visible.” Aurélie Cavanna, January 2019