David Hilliard is an American photographer born in 1964 who lives and works in Boston (MA). His work is present in many large museums and in the principal galleries in the United States. For his first major solo exhibition in France, the Galerie Particulière will display until July 30th 2011 an important selection of his work focusing on the last ten years.

As a reflection of Greg Crewdson and Philip-Lorca diCorcia, his teachers at Yale University in New Haven (where he obtained his degree), his photography follows narratives. He is interested “in the passing of the frozen time inherent in every photographic act –contrary to the cinematographic technique”. Slightly in the fashion of a diary, these ten years describe his experiences, his memories, his encounters, more intimately his friends, family or even love relationships. But even more inwardly we detect tensions, urges, a questioning on his fantasies and his fears.

A path through his life where we should be able to read his conflicts with his father -who in fact introduced him to photography, and some undisguised ambiguities on sexuality. These private moments should also allow one to discover a destiny, an identity; yet the chosen device to show his images is there to sow confusion. In fact, he juxtaposes through diptychs, triptychs and even quadriptychs, the different fragments of the “his scenes of life” leaving us the duty to reconstruct them in order to understand.

Thus, the meaning released through each photograph must be surpassed if we want to go even further. In this way, the spectator is forced to be a concerned party in the picture, and to question it with its own feelings.

Bernard Perrine
Bernard.Perrine1@orange.fr

Les vies de David Hilliard
Until July 30 2011

La Galerie Particulière
16 rue du Perche
75003 Paris