L'entraînement

“The world is full of missing cogs. [...]
but to me it seems, at least that which concerns our globe, that the only thing which makes it spin without incident is the fact that here and there, cogs are missing”
(Dojoji. Yukio Mishima).


“Lavoisier tells us that nothing is lost, everything is transformed, in a scientific perception of the world anyway; with art, we could rather say that everything is destroyed and rebuilt. The representation of destruction, and especially artist's self destruction is a definite and cherished  artistic value, almost a fantasy. It is that we admire artists determination to search, abandon and destroy in order to then construct anew. Gaël Bonnefon has this determination, even more so because he photographically analyses this phenomenon of abandonment and destruction.
He shows the workings of an unchanging driving force, which encourages people and the world to watch themselves never dying, yet advancing in self-destruction. Drunken, drugged or naked youngsters, hotheaded or weary are all lying in wait, vaguely questioning the lens with their gaze. Rickety walls, obsolete architecture and overgrown concrete slabs also seem to be waiting for some kind of fate to be granted them. But, in his pictures, melancholia of decline is only one element weighed out by Gaël, against joyful danger and tension.
The title refers to the mechanical risk which draws the subjects towards either accomplishing or abandoning their aspirations, or towards downfall. They appear squashed by the twilight atmosphere of a world they prefer to apprehend at night, as if refusing themselves the right to dream and choosing to live even a half-life. In the end, this series, L'entraînement is an overwhelming wave of aspiration and destruction in which the photographer takes part and stages the tribulations and grace of his own life. It is never easy to suppress the extent of the damage one would inflict upon oneself in order to feel better, and to reflect upon that which one would agree to abandon...”

David Chaignon
Translated from the French by Matilda Holloway

Elegy for the Mundane
Michaël Soyez (exhibition text - Château d'Eau gallery 2019)

Melancholia of the crepuscule
Sébastien Porte (Télérama n°3163)

"Elegy for the Mundane" les aspérités d'un même monde
Julien Hory (Fisheye magazine)

Entre les gens
Paul de Sorbier (exhibition text, Maison Salvan)

Douceurs de la vie violente
Fabien Ribery (L'intervalle)

Elegy for the mundane
Mickaël Soyez (catalogue, Château d'eau)

Une poétique de l'accident
L'intervalle (Entretien par Fabien Ribery)

About decline
(Exhibition text / Château d'eau gallery)

Temps Zéro
Mina Lenvka (website)

Elle est où la baballe?
Olivier Michelon (catalogue, Afiac 2013)

Les herbes fauves
Arnaud Fourrier (catalogue, Afiac 2013)

About decline - fragments -
François Saint-Pierre (Notice, Abattoirs Museum collection)

59 km
Michel Métayer (Cheminements 2011)

L'entraînement
David Chaignon

About decline
Marine Eric (Jeune création exhibition, Le Centquatre)