the missing
sébastien lifshitz collection
After looking through hundreds of Jorge Alberto Cadi’s photocollages while preparing this exhibition, images from my collection of amateur photographs came back to me, as if inevitably. Cadi constantly transforms the people in the photos he finds. The original image is scarified, cut, painted, sewn.
In the same way, similar manipulations can be found in vernacular photography, whether they are deliberate or created by chance. These transformations are certainly less spectacular than in Cadi’s work, yet they produce a fascinating strangeness that has always drawn me in.
These photographs, found in moldy boxes at flea markets or on the internet, are true castoffs, for the disappearance of the subject renders them inoperative or unreadable. The violent gestures they contain can spark imaginary narratives within us, as we try to guess the reasons that led someone to erase another person from an image.
A photograph, even when destroyed, remains a precious trace, for it celebrates the mysterious absence that dwells at its core.