Fakewhale in dialogue with Michel Mazzoni
Michel Mazzoni’s artistic practice is an intricate exploration of photography as both a medium and a process. Resisting traditional boundaries, his work delves into the unnoticed interstices of everyday life, turning insignificant details into profound visual narratives. Drawing inspiration from minimalist aesthetics, his art challenges viewers to linger on subtle gradations of form, material, and texture.
Through innovative techniques, including manipulation, duplication, and superimposition, Mazzoni creates fragmented, composite images that invite contemplation. His works often interact with space in a way that emphasizes their temporal and material fragility. Whether
through in situ installations, artist books, or curated exhibitions, Mazzoni’s practice embodies an interplay of entropy, memory, and the fluidity of perception.
Guided by literary influences such as J.G. Ballard and philosophical concepts of time and temporality, his art acts as a resistance to immediacy, encouraging delayed interpretation and deeper engagement. As a photographer, editor, and teacher, Mazzoni continuously pushes the boundaries of what the photographic image can be, forging connections between visual art, narrative, and conceptual inquiry.
We at FakeWhale are thrilled to discuss his visionary practice, exploring the motivations, processes, and inspirations behind his work.
Fakewhale: Your photographic practice is described as “processual” and deeply tied to the circulation of both body and gaze. How do you perceive this process in your creative routine, and how does it influence your choice of subjects and environments?
Michel Mazzoni: There is indeed a form of process in my work, but ultimately it’s something that comes naturally to me, based on my sensitivity, my interest in certain things, my tastes… The circulation of the body and the gaze comes from the fact that I attach a great deal of importance to framing, which engenders visual and physical work. To sum up my work routine, it’s quite simple: I choose a place beforehand in which I’m going to wander around with my 35mm analogue camera, I observe, I glean and leave a lot of space for spontaneity. It’s a question of observation, the eye is important, taking the time to see is fundamental to my work. The choice of my environments is linked to this process, but more generally, I’ve never been attracted by the picturesque or the pretty. As far as possible, I prefer generic spaces and motifs that are typical of modernity.
‘Abandoned gas stations are more beautiful than the Taj Mahal’ is an interesting sentence from JG Ballard, because it shows where the threshold of “beauty” lies for different individuals.
Your works often focus on insignificant, precarious, or neglected elements, seeking to reveal hidden interstices in everyday life. What inspires you to bring these overlooked details into the visual forefront, and how do you think this shapes the viewer’s perception of reality?
II’m interested in things that are insignificant, simple, imperfect, atypical, what the Japanese call ‘Wabi-sabi’. Insignificant elements can become significant. Once again, it’s all based on perceptual exercises. It’s a question of looking, of framing. The world is full of random meanings. It’s in the most ordinary things that I discover a strange intensity and unexpected connections. At some point, it’s possible to detect interlockings, connections, geometries, wefts, structures, and also a form of beauty that could refer to minimalist
sculpture. Personally, I see it as the disorder of a system, a poetic disorder that modifies the arrangement structured by normality. Here, the photographic representation becomes the document of an action, and I like to let the viewer make his or her own interpretation.
The concept of “minimalist and artisanal” practices plays a key role in your work. Can you delve into how these approaches manifest in your exploration of the visual field and your use of materials like photocopies, gelatins, and silver prints? Minimalism is present at every stage of my creative process. It begins with an economy of means when shooting, a 35 mm camera with a single standard 50 mm lens and black and white film. The construction of my images (what you call exploration of the visual field) is also fragmentary and minimal. Finally, for my installations, there is also a minimalist approach. This is also where the artisanal process comes into play, in the choice of different materials that I use to create certain installations. Nowadays, there are also printing and image reproduction possibilities that we can easily exploit, such as scanners, photocopiers and inkjet plotters. The renderings produced by these technologies can be managed to obtain impoverished images (loss of contrast, matter, traces, etc.).
How do you strike a balance between ambiguity and meaning in these works, and what emotional or intellectual responses do you hope to evoke?
Michelangelo Antonioni once said: ‘My films speak of nothing, but with precision’. With my work, I try to point out things that ‘catch the eye’, with a strong visual presence but that don’t explain anything. With this abstract distance, I want to raise questions, rather than providing ready-made answers. I think that what we call the ‘delay effect’ in a work or a film will play a big part in notions of timelessness.
Your series, such as Rien, presque, emphasize grayscale tones and fragmented forms. Can you share how this focus on subtle gradations and abstraction contributes to the themes of entropy and memory in your work?
Rien, presque is a series of fragmented images that I produced over a period of 4 years in different parts of Europe and the world. The series is constructed according to the intimate logic of the poetics of linked fragments. For this reason, and because I knew I was going to produce an artist’s book with this series, I had to maintain a certain coherence in terms of both content and form. To achieve these gradations of grey, I used the same film, and then we applied a curve to the scans. More generally, my images are the opposite of the spectacular effects that are too seductive and fashionable. They are most often in black and white, printed in shades of grey, without too much contrast, a little erased… Which brings us back to the phenomenon of entropy, disorder or the erasure of a system…
The interplay of spaces, voids, and off-screen elements is a recurring theme in your installations. How do these elements reflect your thoughts on the boundaries of perception and the unseen layers of reality?
I always try, whenever possible, to make my work interact with the space in which I work. I always think in terms of ‘less is more’, because I find that when there’s too much to see in an installation, you can’t see anything at all. That’s why I play with scale and emptiness.
Your work is often likened to musical compositions, characterized by contrasts, dialogues, and counterpoints. How do you approach the “rhythmic” structuring of your pieces, especially when curating them for specific spaces or publications? I work a lot on the phenomena of echoes or interference between images, especially in the case of my publications. On the walls of a space, rhythms and counterpoints can be created by differences in format, density and space on the wall. Yes, music is an important
part of my life, I listen to a lot of American composers from the 60s and 70s (Morton Feldman, John Cage…), and more recent minimalist electronic music.
In your installations, you engage with in situ methodologies to adapt works to their spatial contexts. Could you describe your approach to these installations and how the physical space shapes the narrative of your exhibitions?
In fact, I work a lot with works in situ, so that I can adapt more easily to the spatial context. When I use images, I use wallpaper or posters stuck directly onto the walls. The very thin paper creates a 3D effect. I also use other materials that I recycle from exhibition to exhibition. Unfortunately, it’s complicated to make site-specific installations everywhere. It’s more difficult to escape the confined and codified circuits of galleries and museums, which want things that are easier or ready to sell…
The aesthetic of entropy and the exploration of dereliction are recurring motifs in your work. How do you integrate these themes to comment on broader socio cultural or environmental concerns?
I would talk more about the state of things, insofar as I show scenes in which the relationship between things is more important than the things themselves. The aesthetic of entropy comes from the fact that I am interested in ‘new monuments’ made of artificial materials that ‘are not built with time in mind, but rather against it’. Writers like JG Ballard and Brian Aldiss used to say that ‘entropy is evolution in reverse’. For my part, I don’t see this as pessimistic; there’s even something poetic in this natural resistance to the passage of time.
Collaboration seems integral to your process, as seen in your partnerships for publications and installations. Can you discuss the role of collaboration in your creative journey and how it enriches or challenges your vision?
Collaboration is important in any job. There are things you can’t do on your own and you always learn something from someone in the process. Personally, I work collaboratively on my book publications, but less so on my exhibitions. For my books, for example, I’ve been working for several years with the same publisher (MER.B&L, in Ghent), with whom I have a lot of exchanges, both upstream and during the production of a book. This is very important if we are to achieve what we want.
Your teaching and workshop experiences suggest a commitment to sharing your practice. How has engaging with students and emerging artists influenced your own artistic development?
I really enjoy teaching and sharing. At the moment I limit myself to workshops, as this takes up too much of my time as an artist. The exchanges with the students are very interesting and beneficial for both of us.
Looking ahead, what themes, media, or ideas are you most excited to explore in future projects? Are there any ongoing works you’d like to share with us?
I’m currently working on a major 460-page book project, CRAFT. It should be published in spring 2025 by MER.B&L. It will be composed mainly of my own images, but also external archive images, all accompanied by a long text by Clémentine Davin. The subject will be manufacturing and craftsmanship from a different perspective, but always with echoes, blurs and ellipses. I have two exhibitions coming up, one in January and the second in March. In the first exhibition, I’ll be doing more sculptural things than usual. Other things are in the pipeline, which I hope will come to fruition. More generally, my projects remain in the continuity of the ‘infra-thin’, the tenuous and a minimal and unspectacular approach to the image.
fakewhale
Founded in 2021, Fakewhale advocates the digital art market's evolution. Viewing NFT technology as a container for art, and leveraging the expansive scope of digital culture, Fakewhale strives to shape a new ecosystem in which art and technology become the starting point, rather than the final destination.
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