Marie Bovo’s «Cтансы (Stances)» series, which was exhibited for the first time at Les Rencontres d’Arles in the Église Trinitaire in Arles, was created over a series of long train journeys across Russia in the winter of 2017. Bovo invites us to follow the unfolding of a journey with no aim but itself, between past and present, in a universe of solitude and poetry, appearing always the same and yet never exactly identical. With each stop, Bovo captured the landscape that offered itself to view in the frame made by the open doors, then through the closed windows of the Russian trains. With this method, which plays on the obturating movement the camera, Bovo has developed the investigation into space and framing that she began with her series on the courtyards of Marseille, and on windows in rooms in Algiers.
The Stances series projects us from inside the train to the exterior, without threshold or intermediary, into landscapes of winter snow. The snow, covering everything with a white veil, modifies the structure of the places it falls on, erases the horizon, effaces all landmarks, eliminating every anecdotal or too easily identifiable aspect. Borders, quays, and roads all disappear, giving way to a unity, an integrity of the landscape from before or beyond human presence. A radical abstraction, which, if it evokes Malevich, also lends an unheard of materiality to space. In Russia, snow acts like a weapon, a protective barrier. It’s an immobile ally.
Marie Bovo was born in 1967 in Alicante, Spain and lives in Marseille, France. Her work has been exhibited on many occasions in France and abroad, including Les Rencontres de la photographie, in Arles (2017); currently at MUCEM; in the permanent exhibition «Connectivité», at La Chambre, Strasburg (2016); at La Fondation Fernet-Branca, St. Louis (2016); the UCR/California Museum of Photography, Riverside, California (2016); FRAC PACA, Marseille (2015); L’Institut français de Madrid (2014); La Maison européenne de la photographie, Paris (2010); Le Centre de création contemporaine, Tours (2009); Maison de la Photographie, Toulon (2009); Luìs Serpa Projectos, Lisbon (2008); and Les Ateliers de la Ville de Marseille, Musée de Marseille (2007). Her work was exhibited at Palazzo Zenobio as part of the 54th Venice Biennale in 2011. In 2016, Bovo was nominated for the ICP Infinity Awards in New York. Bovo’s work has entered collections including those of Le Fonds National d’Art Contemporain (FNAC), Paris; La Maison européenne de la photographie, Paris; Le Grand Hornu, Boussu, Belgium; Les Collections de Saint-Cyprien, Saint-Cyprien; The California Museum of Photography, Riverside, CA; and FRAC PACA, Marseille.