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Artist Biography

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Pierre Gonnord

The French-born artist Pierre Gonnord (b. 1963), now based in Spain, has enjoyed great success throughout Europe for years, arriving in the United States as a master portraitist of the dark underbelly of global civilization. Progressing cautiously, carefully, and with great patience, Gonnord slowly makes his way into communities that live off the grid, nomadic populations, and worlds not yet illuminated by the buzzing glow of technology, investing time among coal miners, punks, immigrants, and gypsies, and translating his experience of their lives into one camera click, one stunning portrait. His landscapes, too, represent the desecrated, unearthly environments inhabited by those on the fringe of civilized society: mountain slopes choked with toxic plumes of smoke; desiccated plains ablaze from mineral fires.

Working within the great tradition of Old Master painting and portraiture, Gonnord creates images as stark as they are evocative, and each one exists as a testament to the casualties—human and environmental—left behind by a quickly developing world. Much as Francisco Goya immortalized the vagrants and vagabonds of a country ravaged by war, as Caravaggio elevated street life to the height of history painting, as Vélazquez and Rembrandt mined the psychological depths of their subjects, so too does Gonnord explore the darkness.

Framed from the waist up and captured entirely by natural light against a deep black drop cloth that Gonnord carries with him, his subjects' eyes meet the camera with searing power. On their faces can be mapped the vulnerable, wounded, occasionally hostile reality of those who live, for the most part, unseen. Just as in Lucien Freud's thickly impastoed portraits of pasty-skinned, sinewy men and women, or the maddened, contorted visages of Francis Bacon's tortured models, Gonnord's images depict by way of revelation, exploring the truth—and the humanity—in every imperfection. He invests weeks and months earning the trust of these people, and the photograph he takes is often the only photograph they will have taken in their lives, in one monumental moment of mythic homage.

Working in many ways a contemporary historian, documenting communities and ways of life that are always on the brink of extinction, in 2011, Gonnord was chosen as one of 14 artists to be included in the monumental exhibition Real Venice, at the Abbey of San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice, as part of the 54th Venice Biennale.

He has had solo exhibitions at such celebrated institutions as the Maison Européenne de la Photographie (Paris, 2005), Case Asia (Barcelona, 2006), the Museo de Bellas Artes de Sevilla (Seville, 2006), the Museo de Bellas Artes de Santander (Santander, 2007), and the Centro de Fotografía Universidad de Salamanca (Salamanca, 2008). His work is in many major public and private collections, including the collections of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte “Reina Sofia” in Madrid, the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris, the Centre National des Arts Plastiques in Paris, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. Gonnord has had several monographs and catalogs published about his work including Pierre Gonnord: Regards (TF Editores, 2005), Pierre Gonnord (Ediciones Universidad Salamanca, 2008), Pierre Gonnord, Terre De Personne (Lunwerg, 2009), Pierre Gonnord: PHotoBolsillo (La Fábrica, 2012) and Pierre Gonnord: Portraits (La Fábrica, 2013.)


 

Exhibitions

Pierre Gonnord

The Dream Goes Over Time
Mar 05 - Apr 25, 2015

Great Photographs: Scape

Ansel Adams, Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Jeff Bark, James Casebere, Elger Esser, Julian Faulhaber, Pierre Gonnord, William Hentry Jackson, Patrick Jacobs, Vik Muniz, Nick Knight, Koyo Okada, Clifford Ross, Joel Sternfeld, And Albert Watson
Jun 14 - Jul 20, 2012

Pierre Gonnord

Relatos
Dec 08, 2011 - Feb 04, 2012

Press

New York Times Magazine

The Last Coal Miners of Spain
Apr 12, 2015

Wall Street Journal

The Real Lives of Gypsies Culture
Apr 04, 2015

International New York Times

Underbelly of globalization
Mar 31, 2015

Il Post

The Gypsies photographed by Pierre Gonnord
Mar 29, 2015

PhotoWhoa

Pierre Gonnord Interview: Old Master Styled Portraits of Southern Portugal’s Gypsies
Mar 26, 2015

Publico

The Portuguese Gypsy who posed for Pierre Gonnord
Mar 23, 2015

Musee Magazine

Pierre Gonnord at Hasted Kraeutler
Mar 17, 2015

Daily Mail

Portraits from the underbelly: Beautiful photographs of Spanish gypsies that look like Old Masters paintings
Mar 13, 2015

Observador

Gypsies of Alentejo in an exhibition in New York
Mar 11, 2015

Feature Shoot

STRIKING PORTRAITS OF THE NOMADS OF THE PORTUGUESE ALENTEJO SHOT IN THE STYLE OF OLD MASTER PAINTINGS
Mar 10, 2015

Paper

ARTIST PIERRE GONNORD TRANSFORMS PUNKS AND GYPSIES INTO THE STARS OF REGAL DUTCH MASTER PORTRAITS
Mar 06, 2015

Artsy

In Pierre Gonnord’s Old-Fashioned Portraits, a Glimpse of Life on the Edge of the World
Mar 05, 2015

Widewalls

Pierre Gonnord at Hasted Kraeutler
Feb 18, 2015

El País

Secondary Roads Pierre Gonnord
Oct 26, 2014

Ciel Variable

The Intensity of the Gaze
May 21, 2014

Connect Savannah

Pierre Gonnord, Portraying the South
Oct 16, 2013

El País

Aug 30, 2013

La Lettre

Pierre Gonnord: Relatos
Dec 19, 2011

Some/Things

Sep 19, 2011

News

Pierre Gonnord

Guided Gallery Tour
Mar 07, 2015

Pierre Gonnord

The Dream Goes Over Time - Reception
Mar 05, 2015

Pierre Gonnord

Pierre Gonnord: GAIA
Oct 22, 2014

Pierre Gonnord

Exhibiting in "Between Heaven and Earth" at Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando
Sep 10, 2014

Pierre Gonnord

Pierre Gonnord solo exhibition COAL at Museum of Mining and Metallurgy
Jul 16, 2014

Pierre Gonnord

Relatos, Artist Reception
Dec 08, 2011

Publications

Pierre Gonnord: The Dream Goes Over Time

La Fábrica/Centro de Arte Tomás y Valiente
May 11, 2013

Pierre Gonnord: Portraits

La Fábrica
Apr 30, 2013

Pierre Gonnord

La Fábrica
Mar 31, 2012

Pierre Gonnord: Terre De Personne

Lunwerg
Dec 01, 2009

Pierre Gonnord

Ediciones Universidad Salamanca
Apr 01, 2008

Pierre Gonnord Regards

TF Editores
Jan 01, 2005