Le jongleur 2007 - 0:36 sec. digital video - Click on image to view clip
Vincent Lafrance
Vincent Lafrance was born in 1978 in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu (Qc, Canada). He graduated from Concordia University in 2005 where he completed a BFA in photography. He lives and works in Montréal.
I saw the Screen Test by Andy Warhol for the first time during a school trip in Germany. The room was filled with these portraits shot during the mid 60s. When Warhol first showed these portraits to his gallerist, the gallerist thought he was sitting in front of a slide show. But when the model blinked and the gallerist thought it was brilliant, he had been fooled. The video still is now a common strategy. Numerous artists use it for as many reasons. We can’t be fooled by it, but it remains a mysterious and an engaging viewing experience. Le jongleur ironically refers to the decisive moment photography as discussed by French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson. The decisive moment comes to a paradox in Le Jongleur. It is everything but a decisive moment, its constructed. I wanted to fabricate the movement, simulate the effort, the balance and build that spectacular and acrobatic gesture. I wanted to stop this moment so that it can be seen like in a frozen time zone.
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