A reliable feature of good art is its ability to take on new resonance. When Denis Darzacq initiated this body of work he couldn’t have known how profoundly the concept of absence would speak to the emptying out of the cafés and street life in his native Paris this year. In a uniquely insular moment when many have been afforded a time for greater reflection and self-reliance, Darzacq’s process of mining his own work for raw material also rings true. By cutting and tearing recent photographic prints of his own work he generated a wealth of formal material that could be recombined endlessly to yield surprising new compositions. The saturated colors, strong lighting, and shallow relief yield images that are at once abstract and hyperreal. If these works ultimately erase the subjects of Darzacq’s previous works they also read convincingly as newly formed worlds. As ever, out of the old comes the new.
French photographer Denis Darzacq was born and raised in Paris, a city in which he still lives and works today. He graduated from the ENSAD (French National School for Decorative Arts) in 1986 and started his photographic career following the French rock scene.
In 1994 he began a series exploring the nocturnal life of Parisians titled “Only Heaven”, which he exhibited at various photo festivals. In 1999 the French Ministry of Culture commissioned him a body of work on French youth. The interaction between man and urban space and, more precisely, the suburbs have been a driving force in his recent work.
Darzacq won the 2007 World Press Photo prize in the category “Arts & Entertainment” for his series “La Chute”.
He has published a number of books including “Act (2011), "Hyper” (2009),“La Chute” (2007), “Bobigny centre ville” (2006, co-author Marie Desplechin), “Le ciel étoilé au-dessus de ma tête” (2004), “Ensembles 1997/2000” (2001).
Exhibited extensively throughout France and internationally, his work is also held in both public and private collections including the Pompidou Center, the FNAC (French National Contemporary Art Fund), the Nicéphore Niépce Museum and the Cité Nationale de l'Histoire de l'Immigration.
He is represented by Laurence Miller Gallery in New York.