The opening pages announce the words and the images, or vice-versa if we consider that the words are already image full. Life—rather, the book, how it gives to see a slice of life—begins in 1999, with Mexique, la première dose d’Ice (Mexico, the First Dose of Ice).

Then come the list of the places drugs and meetings. Ice relates the fall—is the fall— that Agata describes on December 1, 2010: “It’s been two years since I could take pictures. How can one hope to account for the intensity of the real through a language that remains bland and artificial, faced with the violence of the senses aroused by excess?” Memory vanishes, bearings are lost and it becomes impossible to give a framework, a meaning to the notes. The task—if you can use that word to describe such an exercise—was entrusted to Rafael Garrido. The descent into the world of methamphetamines shifts the boundaries between reality and fiction. We no longer know which text or image takes precedence. One without the other would not be or would be different. They are travels, wanderings that the image alone cannot render, too subjective or ill-defined. And how to imagine the images through reading the texts, especially for those who are unfamiliar with these worlds?

Whether they’re in Bangkok, Phnom Penh or Vietnam, the emaciated, deformed, near disembodied bodies fill the pages of a long voyage at the end of nights and many experiences.

One has to read and look at IceBernard PERRINE
Bernard.Perrine1@orange.fr

EDITION
"ice" by Antoine d'Agata
Edited by Refael Garido
Images en Manœuvres Editions
Format 170x230mm 304 pages

Signed by the photographer
Arles, Hôtel d'Arlatan
After the Natacha Wolinski’s conférence
July 6 2012

Presentation in Arles
Hypermarkt
12 rue Gambetta
13200 Arles
July 2-8 2012, 10 am – 10 pm