Frank Perrin

Born 1969 in France, he lives and works in Paris.  

 
A historian of post-capitalism

Photographer, philosopher, critic, creator of the journal Bloc-Notes and the magazine Crash, Franck Perrin’s work over the last few years has been organised around the concept of “post-capitalism,” drawing on a hypothesis articulated by Veblen and followed by Baudrillard: the subject of our obsessive desire for consumption is no longer the object as such but its image, a mise-en-scène, an elective process (Frank Perrin, Défilés, Jousse Entreprise, 2006). Perrin’s work has been exhibited at the Jousse (Paris) and Analix Forever (Geneva) galleries, as well as in many institutional exhibitions, notably in Moscow, Brussels, Barcelona and Seoul. It is held in a number of public and private collections, including the Fonds National d’Art Contemporain, France, and the ING Insurance Collection, Amsterdam.

Perrin is constantly finding new ways to explore our contemporary obsessions and collective fantasies in a succession of series that seems to be working towards the equivalent of a catalogue raisonné. The fashion shows that he has photographed over the years, for example, are no longer so much a sartorial display as a theatre where beauty is present, where creativity is exhibited, and the solitude of the actors meets that of the spectators in the darkness, that obscure(d) people who watch the “model,” the tragic stage on which the world is reflected, moves and is moved. Another series, the Joggers (1998-2011), reflects a spontaneous, planetary obsession with performance. According to the artist, “The sum of all people, of all their obsessions, has more to say than I do […] beauty, fashion, the spectacle, the planetarisation of the frivolous: I try to capture these fascinations which are part external image and part internalised image, this foam from the waves of obsession – to catch them in my nets like a butterfly hunter. I am in the pollen of things and I try to extract their essence. But I need to find the right mirrors, forms that will convey the complexity of the period.”

At le Printemps de septembre, Frank Perrin has been invited to show his Ruins, a new series that is more pared-down and sophisticated in form than his more “conventional” photographs. Once again, this “photorama”-type series emerges from his research into post-capitalism. Ruins takes the form of a mural frieze inspired by the monuments of power that are nearly always reproduced on banknotes, revealing the subliminal relation between architecture and money. Once stretched, enlarged and purified, freed of their context, and printed on banknotes (from Europe, Asia and the Americas – there is no hierarchy) they take us through a virtual panorama linking buildings whose only proximity is through money. In these Ruins Perrin is immortalising a world on the brink of disappearance, the world of banknotes, which are being replaced by credit and debit cards. The equivalent of the “ruins” of the commercial and financial capitalism system, but grandiose ruins: here, the imaginary of architecture and power is at once hidden and revealed. The history of money? That too is mine. We need only see with the artist’s eyes to understand how banknotes, a global yet singular human invention, embed our histories in the common stream of money, that substance which is better shared than anything else, and makes everything flow and communicate.