3438642666?profile=originalCamden, by Jean-Christian Bourcart

PHOTO EXHIBITION AT THE INVISIBLE DOG / BROOKLYN

“Absurd, all I did was search the web for the most dangerous city in the USA. I wanted to find that strange energy given off by places where rules and social constraints have been abolished or weakened. A sense of freedom mixed with the excitement of danger. Also I wanted to understand and witness what is real life behind the statistics, and check that it’s still possible to reach out to others, as distant and alien as they might seem.

At the top of the list I found Camden, New Jersey, less than two hours from New York. There, I discovered the face of everyday poverty hidden behind stigma and stereotype. Through everyday observations, incidental, significant details of destruction and helplessness, but also emotional gesture, I confront the realities of those who have been out of the system for too long, victims of what the sociologist Loïc Wacquant calls a “territorial stigmatization” of whole neighborhoods as “no-go areas” as an important structural element of the new “urban exclusion in the twenty-first century.” Yet there is not more violence in Camden than anywhere else. It is just more raw and visible, and less masked by hypocrisy and cynicism. Maybe this work will help to provide some evidence of the economic and social machine that swallows us up and spits us out. How to determine what is really going on – and then what to do about it – is at the base of every political and social concern.

Jean-Christian Bourcart is one of the best contemporary photographers working today. His work is extremely imaginative; totally unique; deeply humanistic and often imbued with wit. He is unlike any other Artist I know.
Nan Goldin

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Exhibition on viewing until Saturday february 2nd - free admission

more information visit our website www.theinvisibledog.org

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