2012, from Autobiography, in my iPad application Horvatland
In 2011, my friend Hélène Busnel (the actress and dancer who had modeled for many of my montages in the 90’) was invited to participate to a festival in Nancy (France), whose formula was to present work produced in collaboration by artists of different branches. Without knowing exactly what we would do, I suggested a trip to the marble quarries of Carrara and the nearby sculpture workshops, because we were both interested in sculpture and longed to see these places. What I had in mind was a series of images that wouldn’t quite be photographic, but somewhere between reality and fiction, discovery and fantasy, reporting and cheating, objet-trouvé and the trompe-l'oeil (two French terms for which I cannot find English equivalents). The shooting was in three series of sessions: first, in April 2011, on location in Italy; then, in May, of Hélène, in my studio near Paris; then some more of Hélène, in June, in the North of France. This discontinuity increased the part of the unpredictable. While shooting on location, I had only a faint idea of where I would place the ‘sculptures’; while photographing the nudes, I tried to imagine how I would fit them into the landscapes, but I still didn’t know how I would manage to make skin look like marble. The assembling took several months. I am not quite certain about the relevance and the meaning of this experiment. But both Hélène and myself enjoyed doing it, and don’t regret our time and our efforts.