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B a c k t o B a c k
by Bice Curiger, for Parkett no. 50/51
Only one print exists of each photographic image Jean-Luc Mylayne has produced over the past few years—an image recorded in a split second that embodies months of watchful waiting. This emphasis on uniqueness intentionally addresses a medium impregnated, like no other, with the epochal idea of mass reproduction. And yet Jean-Luc Mylayne has conceived a multiple edition for Parkett that presents viewers with a challenge of this very kind. In an edition of 48 + 12, Mylayne presents a picture-object consisting o f two photographs mounted back to back. The simple title NO. 37-38, AOUT 1982 invites us to concentrate on an undefined time span within a month, the month of August, fifteen years ago. But why are the photographs presented back to back? Jean-Luc Mylayne, who is always questioning time, impishly confronts us with a reality in which these two moments cannot be seen together, and thereby implies that our technology (which is inescapably linked to drawing*) in fact undermines time. By looking for differences between the two shots, by observing the lighting, the positions of the leaves, the condition of the blossoms and the life around a bird ’s nest, by reading the signs that nature writes in time, we use our human mind and its ability to memorize pictures and verify facts to immerse ourselves in the richness of a nature governed by another set of laws. A subtle, conceptually devised indication of units of time is camouflaged in the fact that the format of the picture, 24 x 24 cm, corresponds to the hours of a day; the format of the whole, 36.5 x 36.5 cm, to the days in a year; and the edition of 60 to the minutes and hours of clock time.
Artist Document
Jean-Luc Mylayne’s sketch for his Parkett edition. The image size corresponds to the hours of a day (24 x 24 cm) , the format of the whole frame to the days in year (36,5 x 36,5 cm).
Parkett Text
Read a Parkett text on Jean-Luc Mylayne
