Slow shutter speeds, deep blacks and brilliant whites contribute to the images seeming to create a reality or phase of their own, in between day and night, activity and sleep, the personal and the anonymous, reality and dreams. The images show the duality of the presence and absence of mankind in a world where everything is short-lived, uncontrollable and transient. Despite being moments frozen in time, everything seems fluid. Nothing is fixed; the moments extend into one another.
Christophe Agou : ‘I am aware of the facts. The past is always behind me, the future remains uncertain and the present, without a shadow of doubt, is what I need to shed light on. Knowing that life will end sooner or later makes this world intensely alive. My fears and expectations lead me to face the reality that is directly perceivable by my senses. Everything I see, hear, feel, sense, touch or taste guides my perceptions, my emotions and my actions. All I wish to do is to contemplate the continuous flow of existence, beyond the ordinary dimension. As morning becomes day and evening turns to night, stepping gently along, I seek the light within the darkness of being.
‘Between light and dark, real and imaginary, material and immaterial, presence and absence, distance and intimacy, gravity and weightlessness, I am attentive to the world that surrounds me. With every glance, I take in the “negative-positive” of existence and the inevitability of impermanence to its glowing limits. Alone and haunted, I trust my inner eye, my heart. Everything, absolutely everything, becomes visible. Appearances, disappearances, nothing seems of secondary importance to me.’
Christophe Agou passed away in September 2015, a couple of months after this interview.
