The title of this show, Soleil Cou Coupé (Let the Sun Beheaded Be), is borrowed from the Martinican writer Aimé Césaire (1913-2008), whose poetry inspired Gregory Halpern during his time in Guadeloupe. As the fourth winner of the Immersion program, a French-American photography commission from the Fondation d'entreprise Hermès, the American photographer will exhibit his work from the 2019 residency at the Fondation HCB. Fascinated by the history, the place, the people and the vernacular of the French overseas department, Halpern has created a collection of photographs that is both enigmatic and sensitive to reality.
Returning to the island for three successive trips, sensitive to what the place might offer, Halpern's approach reveals Surrealist inspiration, especially the “Caribbean Surrealism” embodied by Aimé Césaire. When asked what brought him to Guadeloupe, the artist replied: “Maybe I had the intuition to find a certain form of surrealism there”.
The history of Guadeloupe, intrinsically connected to European colonization and the slave trade, can be observed today through many memorials scattered throughout the territory. Aware of that history, the photographer's approach is one of sensitivity, curiosity
and receptivity. Halpern is drawn to the contradiction and incongruity, and juxtaposes the natural beauty and troubling history of the archipelago, forcing viewers to resolve this compelling blend of imagery for themselves.
Guadeloupe is a place of migration where cultures intersect. Halpern sees a reflection of himself in the residents he meets and in the diversity of the communities they represent. He describes his photos as “so many portraits like self-portraits” because they echo his family history, which has been marked by emigration
on another continent. Through portraits and the representation of everyday objects – the vernacular – Halpern reveals, in various forms, the scars of Guadeloupe's past.
Born in Buffalo, New York, in 1977, Gregory Halpern teaches photography at the Rochester Institute
of technology (New York). He has a degree in history and literature from Harvard University
and California College of the Arts, and received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2014. His work has been the subject of numerous publications: Harvard Works because We Do (2003), A (2011), East of the Sun, West of the Moon (in collaboration with Ahndraya Parlato, 2014), ZZYZX (2016), Confederate Moons (2018) and Omaha Sketchbook (2009/2019).
He is editor of The Photographer's Playbook (Aperture, 2014) with Jason Fulford.
The curatorship is entrusted to Clément Chéroux, Joel and Anne Ehrenkranz Chief Curator of Photography at the MoMA in New York, in collaboration with Agnès Sire, artistic director of the Fondation HCB.
Accompanying the exhibition is a work entitled Let the Sun Beheaded Be (Soleil Cou Coupé), published by Aperture.
© Gregory Halpern / Magnum Photos
