Griffin Exhibitions

Carolle Benitah is our featured artist apart of our show, Ties That Bind, on show now at the Griffin.

Ties that Bind stitches together three unique visions looking at the idea of family and the rewriting of history, myth and personal narratives. These artists work with images and objects, including various materials, with the addition of stitching on found images, personal family photos. Each artist finds ways to change the script, rewrite what has been lost and gain clarity of vision.

Tell us a little about yourself and your background. 

I came from fashion background. And I started to explore the medium of photography in early 2000. (more included in artist statement)

Tell a little about your work in the new exhibition, “Ties That Bind.” 

The works exhibited at the Griffin Museum come from family photographic archives. I use mediums such as embroidery, drawing or writing to give another meaning to these photographs. It’s a way to put these photographs back in motion. 

What led to your decision to implement handmade accents like embroidery into your work?  

“Photos Souvenirs” is a work that I undertook between 2009 and 2014 on my personal archives. Snapshots are related to memory and loss and often attest to family happiness. I created an imaginary album as a crossing of appearances where I deconstruct the myth of the ideal family to let emerge a more nuanced image. And to do this, I use the deceptively decorative function of embroidery to give these images a different meaning they had in family mythology, and to do something liberating. My needle works, which are reminiscent of conflict, drama and pain, summon the dark matter of family history, which is precisely absent from these photographs. This slow and precise work is the metaphor of a meticulous construction of oneself and of passing time. 

Embroidery is also the work of women. 

It is the metaphor of a meticulous construction of the self. 

Finally, What is a literary, musical or visual obsession you have at the moment? 

I discovered 4 years ago at Sydney Biennale the work of Miriam Cahn. And I just saw her exhibition at Palais de Tokyo in Paris. I totally fell in love with her work, bought her books, read everything about her, and her practice. The power of her work overwhelmed me. 

Since 4 mouths, I mostly listen to podcasts instead of music. I listen to Lex Fridman podcasts which are smart, intense and very instructive. I discover worlds far from the milieu of photography and open my perspectives on life. I listen philosophy podcasts too. 

ABOUT CAROLLE BENITAH

French Moroccan photographer Carolle Bénitah, who worked for ten years as a fashion designer before turning to photography in 2001, explores memory, family and the passage of time.  Often pairing old family snapshots with handmade accents, such as embroidery, beading and ink drawings, Bénitah seeks to reinterpret her own history as daughter, wife, and mother.

The work of Carolle Bénitah has been published in magazines such as Leica World, Shots Magazine, Photos Nouvelles, Spot, Center for Photography Houston, Foto Noviny, and Lens Culture, among others.  Carolle Bénitah was born in Casablanca (Morocco) and graduated from the Ecole de la Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne (Paris).  Her series Photos-Souvenirs  was also selected to exhibit in FotoFest’s 2014 Discoveries of the Meeting Place showcase of past Biennial portfolio reviews. We thank Corinne Tapia and Sous Les Etoiles Gallery for working with the museum to showcase Carolle’s works.

ARTIST STATEMENT

I started taking photographs in the early 2000s after very strong personal challenges. The fragile dimension of life came upon me and photography worked as an existential crutch. Faced with a reality that is difficult to grasp – such as illness in the series “Self-Portrait with the Red Curtain” (2002), or in the series “A bed of roses” (2001-2008), photography has acted as a new body of meaning. From the beginning, I placed my practice in the field of intimacy; the family and the passing of time were the objects of my research. Today, my work leads to more open topics such as filial ties, desire, loss, mourning and the confinement of women and touching the universal.

 “Photos Souvenirs” is a work that I undertook between 2009 and 2014 on my personal archives. Snapshots are related to memory and loss and often attest to family happiness. I created an imaginary album as a crossing of appearances where I deconstruct the myth of the ideal family to let emerge a more nuanced image. And to do this, I use the deceptively decorative function of embroidery to give these images a different meaning they had in family mythology, and to do something liberating. My needle works, which are reminiscent of conflict, drama and pain, summon the dark matter of family history, which is precisely absent from these photographs. This slow and precise work is the metaphor of a meticulous construction of oneself and of passing time.

I cultivate a protean approach to creation by developing installations around the series “Photos souvenirs” and “Fantômes”. I create books in which I embroider memories, paper mats that evoke the obsession, cushions that tell the stories of Tom Little Thumb … and through which I question the identity, the construction of oneself. I use materials that are in  the domestic world (placemats, handkerchief with embroidered monogram, tea towel, sheet …) and often embroiders on phrases from popular songs, dreams of young romantic girls to denounce the clichés of sentimentality blue flower.

Through the trivial objects that I create and embroider, I overthrow the hierarchy of the arts.  In 2013, “What cannot be said” and “What cannot be seen” are series from my  ID photographs. The philosopher Jacques Derrida wrote: “What cannot be said should certainely not remain silence but written”. Here, writing and drawing are a form of resistance to silence. I speak of women’s silence about their desires and the difficulty of accepting their body as a desiring object. 

 “Jamais je ne t’oublierai” (I will never forget you) (2017) is a series of anonymous photographs that I intervene by masking some elements with gold leaf. It is a negative album  of “Photos Souvenirs”. I point out the shortcomings of photography that says “I’ll never forget you” as the heady chorus of a nursery rhyme. I do this work because no one is concerned by these photographs anymore. “Ideal Standard” (2017) questions the ritual of Marriage in my culture of origin and denounces the desire to submit to the norm and to follow a ready-made model in order to reach a socially acceptable happiness or to his social environment.  

Art has a cathartic function for me. It is a way of overcoming hardships, going beyond earthquakes and standing up. The artist louise Bourgeois says: “Every day, you have to get rid of your past. If we can not, then we become an artist. There are two ways to get rid of one’s past: either one takes all the traces and one throws in the trash and that does not exist any more. Either we take these traces and we transform them. The very act of transforming these traces modifies my vision of the world.

All images courtesy of Sous Les Etoiles Gallery.