#sauvin

Thomas Sauvin/ Beijing Silvermine

The Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP) housed at Columbia College Chicago is currently running an exhibition titled Archive State. The exhibition hosts five different artists who are interested in re-appropriating the use of photographs and videos and using them in these artistic manners to tell the stories of the people within these mediums in relation to one another. Therefore, these works are taking the photos and videos and using them for new purposes that were not the original intent upon their capture.

Archive State Exhibition, Museum of Contemporary Photography, 2014

One of the artist’s instillations that visitors may find initially striking comes from artist Thomas Sauvin and his collection titled Beijing Silvermine. Upon entering the MoCP one can immediately see Sauvin’s work the front room. The space is covered in documentary style photographs of people of varying ages hanging from bright orange walls to the left and right, and one giant wall covered mural of a woman in a green dress posing in front of a scene with a larger than life shark and octopus grapple. The images all appear as amateur, family photos taken with a film camera from over a span of years. The photos are assembled in a way that make the pictures speak to one another, such as a section that consists of baby and toddler photos and a section that consists of water related activities. Also located in this front room is a sculpture that consists of a pile of crumpled photographs that resemble the ones hanging on the walls, plus a couple of scattered digital photo albums located within this pile displaying animated images. Sauvin’s work cannot go unnoticed in this exhibition due to the brightly colored walls, images and some of the bizarre content found within the pictures. His installation consists of photographs of varying sizes hanging on orange walls with thin, black frames that allow the pictures to look clean and cohesive. One can also notice digital photo albums hanging from the walls, similar to the ones in the photo pile. The animations within these digital frames are quite strange to the viewer, but are also quite comedic. For instance, one of the images on the left-hand wall consists of a young girl on horseback with and older gentleman (presumably her father) assisting her on the horse. The image looks innocent enough until the animation shows the young girl raise her arm and smack the older gentleman out of the frame. The animations are indeed random, but are entertaining for viewers to see.

Thomas Sauvin/ Beijing Silvermine

When first looking through Sauvin’s photos, it is easy to assume that the people pictured are all related to each other in one way or another, or at least look like the same photographer took the photos. However, it turns out that Sauvin was interested in archiving color negatives he purchased from a recycling center in Beijing he continuously visited for three years. The recycling center had plans to melt down these filmstrips in order to extract the silver nitrate they contained within them, but allowed Sauvin to purchase them for the amount of silver they were worth. Over that time of collection, Sauvin collected over half a million of these color negatives that he decided to digitize in order to create a monstrous archive of photographs from unknown Chinese photographers who captured their own “Kodak Moments” that are seen replicated through the lenses of various photographers. Sauvin’s installation comments on the rise of China’s global economy (pictured with people standing next to their new refrigerators and TV sets) as well as everyday life during the time when 35 mm film was popularized in the early 80’s through the 2000’s.  

Sauvin’s collection as well as the other artist’s installations featured in the MoCP’s Archive State will continue showing until April 6, 2014.

  By: Raven Feagins

  For more information on this show, please visit: http://www.mocp.org/exhibitions/2014/01/archive-state.php