Discover the contemporary work of Nicolas Baghir

Paris 05 / France

Biography
Events
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Nicolas Baghir Maslowski was born in Paris in 1974. He lives and works in Paris, and on the road. He took his first photos in 1984 and practiced as a dilettante until the mid-90s. From the mid-90s, he photographed dozens of Jamaican singers and French artists. It was in 2011 that his first Perturbations were born (titled PN & PNC), images that resemble paintings or drawings; this work accelerated from 2013 and began to be exhibited in 2014; he presented his first Color Disturbances (PNC) in 2016 at Los Angeles. He developed his Photographic Passports from 2018. Since that same year, he has been carrying out his project « The Room – Outside the bedroom » in a micro-workshop where he manages to mix all his artistic approaches.

« At the antipodes of the obvious in large color format, Baghir's visions, of wild beauty, are rooted in the intimate. » - Télérama Sortir

« Far from the arrogance of digital hyperrealism, an island preserved from any reference to place or time, an intimate space, a timeless fault in the photographic horizon. » - Boom Bang

« An indistinct, moving, quivering vision, Baghir's photography opens the doors to a singular universe, and lets the imagination loose. - Art mirror N°68

« An exploration of what persists in the midst of possible annihilation but far from any provocation. ; the whole remains fragile and bluntly unstable. » - Carnetdart

MUSEUM EXHIBITION

2024-2025 | RAMBOUILLET "Passports and photographic disturbances" | Rambouillet Museum from September 24, 2024 to January 8, 2025

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2023 | CLERMONT-FERRAND "In the head of Nicolas Baghir" | Galerie Catherine Pennec (with the agreement of GXII)

2020 | PARIS "Undercover" | 59 Rivoli Gallery (with the agreement of GXII)

2019 | PARIS "Photographic Passports" / (GXII)

2019 | SHANGHAI "Photographic Passports" / (GXII)

2018 | PARIS "Variations 2.18" | (GXII) Paris

2017 | RENNES / "Around Slow Joe" / Bar in Trans

2016 | LOS ANGELES "Visions III" / Artists’s Corner Gallery (GXII)

2016 | ARLES "Visions II" / Eight Arles Gallery

2015 | PARIS / "Visions I" / Gallery XII (GXII)

2015 | PORTO (« Photographs? ») / Days Are Gallery.

2014 | PARIS 6 / "Photographs II?" / Galerie des Sans-Galeries / Johann Levy

2014 | PARIS 3 / "Photographs? " Fat Gallery / Sitor Senghor

COLLECTIVE EXHIBITIONS AND ART FAIRS

2019 | "Whiteout" | Gallery XII Los Angeles

2019 | Photofever | Carrousel of the Louvre, Paris

2018 | Art Elysées 2018 | Paris

2018 | MIA 2018 | Milan (GXII)

2018 | PhotoShanghai (GXII)

2018 | Shanghai Exhibition Center (GXII)

2017 | MIA PhotoFair, Milan | THE MALL – PORTA NUOVA VARESINE (GXII)

2017 | SHANGHAI / Photo Shanghai Art Fair / (GXII)

2017 | BORDEAUX / (Bernard Magrez Cultural Institute)

2017 | BERLIN / "Im Raum" / Im Raum Gallery

2017 | SAN FRANCISCO PHOTO FAIR (GXII)

2016 | PARIS / Art Elysée (GXII)

2016 | SHANGHAI / Photo Shanghai Art Fair / (GXII)

2016 | PARIS Grand Palais (Art Paris Art Fair) (GXII)

2016 |LOS ANGELES - Photo L.A / (GXII)

2015 | PARIS / Fotofever 2015

2015 | PARIS Grand Palais / Art Capital (Salon des Indépendants)

2015 | PARIS / KAZOART Gallery

Artistic approach

« The Room – Outside the Chamber » Since July 2018, I have found refuge in a seven square meter workshop on the seventh floor without elevator of a small room with a window onto a courtyard, in the heart of Paris. Small space where the sun's rays only pass through a small skylight, I use this well of natural light and develop an original, free work, where all the visual expressions that I have implemented come together. Work in my work since 2011. These photographs had their titles as their only common identity (namely PN, PNC, PP, PH and PX*), but now find themselves linked by this place: The Room. I like to talk about’ cervical extraction » to describe my work which comes from the background of the screen of my retina. I work on my images as a blurring of memory and an alteration of memory in order to stop time. I break my solitude by inviting models that I forge and transform for imagined photography, between painting and photography.

Using mainly slow speeds, I cut off my breathing on most of my interior shots, while I resume it, breathing deeply, in landscapes of solitude which open up horizons for me which close once I go back into bedroom. This creative escape punctuates my apneas with silent breathing, like the moments of painting where I prepare my Passports on large cardboard boxes, and my Disturbances which I prepare in paint on the three walls of the Bedroom, and the same perpetually repainted clothes that I constantly recycles for my models in an infinite cycle. I work in 24x36, 6x6 and 6x7 formats. No photos are retouched, everything is done when the photo is taken.

Concerning Passports (PP), I paint with acrylic on cardboard measuring 100x120cm and 3mm thick. Then to take the photo, I affix a 100x120cm plexiglass plate to my painting, and then the subject appears in the painting by reflecting on the plexiglass; the photographic subject is then embedded in the painting. Then my œhe – the camera – walks over the painting and the photograph is taken of the composition that touches me and which generally represents one to two thirds of the surface of the painting; this often happens within a few millimeters. When I create Passports in the Room, my subject is next to me, or just behind me, and not facing me as is customary in photography. Outside the Chamber, for landscapes, it is the same; I turn my back on them and most often I use the trunk of my vehicle as an easel.

FLOW TITLES/WORKS:

* - PN & PNC = Perturbations Numériques (Black and White) and Perturbations Numériques Couleurs, are all film photographs and only have their titles as digital (ex: PN # 426-633). Unique works.

**- PP = Photographic Passports, digital photographs taken when shooting using reflections in my paintings (PP # 5624). Unique works

***- PX = Digital Photographs « normal », unfiltered (PX # 9426). Printed 30 copies at agrave; different formats

****- PH = Film photographs « normal », unfiltered (PX # 4572-12). Printed 30 copies at agrave; different formats

PUBLICATIONS