Debbie Fleming Caffery - Fantasmas

We are pleased to announce our new exhibition of Debbie Fleming Caffery, including the mexican photographs recently released in "The Spirit & The Flesh" published by Radius books

Debbie Fleming Caffery has been making photographs of the people and culture of her native Louisiana for over thirty years. Past projects include documentation of sugarcane field and mill workers, alligator hunting, and family portraits in Louisiana, as well as photographs of rural Mexico and Portugal. Caffery's work has been included in solo exhibitions at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego and the Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Photography. For several years during the mid-1990s, Debbie Fleming Caffery spent time photographing in a small village in northeastern Mexico, living on the grounds of the local Catholic church, and using a tortilla shack as her studio. In Mexico, the church is the center of village life, and she became accustomed to the flow of life surrounding it, replete with celebrations of religious feasts and the mysteries and secrets of community life. One day she stumbled upon a cantina near the church that served occasionally as a brothel. The environment of the smoke-filled tortilla hut and the unpredictable happenings at the cantina became a central focus of her work. Of this period she has said, "I felt incredibly comfortable in a culture rich in celebrations of religious feasts, with strong, independent, highly emotional people, much like the people I grew up with in southwest Louisiana. Symbols of heaven and hell were dominant, both in the church environment as well as the cantina. The brothel brought new elements into my work: secrets, sensual needs, desire, and often unexpected love." Debbie Fleming Caffery has received numerous awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship (2005) for the work in this book; the first Lou Stoumen Prize (1996), and the Louisiana Governor's Art Award (1990). Her work is included in the permanent collections of many museums, including the Smithsonian Institution, Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the New Orleans Museum of Art. Caffery has published several highly praised books, including Polly, The Shadows, and Carry Me Home.

Debbie Fleming Caffery est née en Louisiane en 1948. Ses photographies du "Deep South", présentées pour la première fois en France aux Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie d'Arles en 1989, frappaient par leur style clair-obscur, à la fois sombre et d'une vitalité charnelle, habitée par les cultures Cajun et afro-américaines. Debbie Fleming Caffery a ensuite découvert le Mexique, autre monde de chair et de mysticisme : " Pendant plusieurs années, j'ai vécu par intermittence sur les terres d'une église catholique dans un petit village mexicain. Je travaillais dans une maison où l'on préparait les tortillas et les repas de fête de la communauté. En vivant près du coeur spirituel de cette société, mon quotidien était hanté par les ténèbres et la lumière, le péché et le pardon, la vie et la mort tout comme l'étaient ces terres et leurs alentours. Les célébrations et les festivités de la vie catholique, la force et l'indépendance des gens me remémoraient ma Louisiane natale. Une petite taverne/maison de passe, située dans l'ombre de l'église, est devenue l'objet de mon travail. Elle donnait un éclairage différent, plus sombre, aux passions de la communauté. Dans ce lieu où régnaient désir et sensualité, j'ai aussi trouvé de l'amour, de la solitude et une grande humanité." Ce travail au Mexique a été soutenu par une bourse de la Fondation Guggenheim et a fait l'objet d'une monographie, "The Spirit & The Flesh", paru en 2009 chez Radius Book, Santa Fe, USA. Cette exposition rassemble des images du Mexique et de Louisiane, où Debbie Fleming Caffery continue de travailler régulièrement.