Settembre

Jean-François Spricigo

photography exhibition
september 8 - october 23, 2010
“ Ce soir nous sommes septembre” Jean François Spricigo was born in 1979 in Tournai, Belgium.

This is how Romy Schneider begins the inspired song from the film Les Choses
de la Vie by Claude Sautet.
The sound of a word sometimes sings a more profound meaning than its definition.
It is enough to perceive its music, an ancient, tumultuous melody of our origins,
echoing our science and ignorance, our ideas and our flesh.
He started taking photographs in early adolescence — his images
would become his travel diary for the years to come.
After graduating from INSAS, he left Brussels and passed the
entrance examination for the Cours Florent in Paris as an actor
where, after his audition, he was accepted directly into the pro-
gram’s final year.
In 2004, Guy Jouaville presented his first exhibition in France at the
National Theater at Parvis à Tarbes.

The music of images is the silence of clouds before a storm, a fragile lack of sound The series “silenzio” was shown at Contretype in Brussels, in
September 2005. In 2007 his next exhibition, “notturno”, was
which heralds the real. A reality of Cervantes, a rich madness, a lucidity beyond held at the Botanique in Brussels.
good and evil. He presented his series “prelude” in February 2008 at the Agathe
Our instincts for guides, fear becomes desire. Gaillard Gallery.
During 2009, he exhibited in Belgium, France, Poland, Denmark,
An intimate link trembles between the language of images and the images of and at the 40 th edition of Rencontres d’Arles.
language. Between word and revelation, we are this link. In 2010, the exhibition “anima”, first shown at the Institut de France
in Paris, was taken up by the Louis Stern Gallery in Los Angeles ;
“Je regarde le soir tomber dans les miroirs” “notturno” toured France ; “en famille” opened in Belgium.
”Settembre” is his second collaboration with Agathe Gaillard.
Photographs as a vision of the world, of a world, the one through which I pass,
often alone, always in solitude. Fragmented moments, a puzzle which comes apart His work has been recognized by the Fondation belge de la
Vocation, and by the prize of photography of the Académie des
at each added piece. Beaux-Arts de l’Institut de France.
He is represented by the Agathe Gaillard Gallery in Paris,
A black & white vertigo, of darkness and of dawn. Contretype in Brussels, the Simonis Gallery in Warsaw, and Louis
For one day more, dare the night, with the eyes of a wolf. Stern Fine Arts in Los Angeles.
He currently lives between France and Belgium, likes animals a lot,
Jean-François Spricigo and tries to understand the world.

Agathe Gaillard 3, rue du Pont Louis-Philippe, 75004 Paris – 01 42 77 38 24 – www.agathegaillard.com – ouvert du mardi au samedi de 14h à 19h – du 8 septembre au 23 octobre 2010
The pictures are available in high definition for press
Cover : Settembre - 01
Left : Settembre - 02, right : Settembre - 03
If you need more pictures, please ask to : jfs@joug.org
The pictures are available in high definition for press
Left : Settembre - 04, right : Settembre - 05
Next page : Settembre - 06
If you need more pictures, please ask to : jfs@joug.org
Belonging to none of the artistic genres, the photographs of Jean-François Spricigo hold the
beauty and strangeness of things which have not been made to be beautiful or strange.
Le Photographe january 2009
Discovered at the Agathe Gaillard Gallery last year, Jean-François Spricigo immediately
scooped the photography prize of the French Académie des Beaux-Arts for 2008. He
extorts emotion with visual poems in black and white which might be by Pelechian or a
tormented Giaocomelli. Halfway between photography, cinema, and this added I-don’t-
know-what which makes artists great, Spricigo is a true revelation.
Beaux-Arts Magazine july 2009
A world away from the clichés of animal photography, Jean-François Spricigo seems to
photograph animals’ souls. In a singular way: in black and white, in motion, in blurred
and highly contrasted images. A photographer to watch closely, therefore.
Télérama november 2009
Born in Tournai in 1979, Jean-François Spricigo has grown significantly since having been
discovered by Antoine d’Agata in 2003. Concentrate on the “savoir defaire” of this
enigmatic master of B&W photography.
Connaissance des Arts november 2009
What strikes us here is the feeling of entering into another dimension: blurred images from
which nothing rises except the flash of a glance or a fang, the brute form of a body
silhouetted against high grass, flat birds in full flight against the North Sea. A wise, brutal
work, of perturbing singularity.
Figaro Scope november 2009
Neither sentimental nor anthropomorphic, his blurry, soft-edge images have a haunting,
soulful quality. But evocative and immediate as his photographs may be, the artist
describes them as visual memories, images that deal with the essence of nature rather
physical details.
Los Angeles Times november 2009