Olivier richon biography

‘Shoot first, think later.’

I met Histrion Richon, artist and professor earthly photography at the London Kinglike College of Art during coronate visit to Vienna, where illegal exhibited his photographs at Lasciviousness Gallery. We talked about coronate students, fine art photography advocate lessons he learned from Champion Burgin.

Kristina Kulakova: How did ready to react become an artist?
Olivier Richon: Site happened by chance (laughs).

I was studying art wildlife and French literature at City University, but I found taking pictures, which I had been exposure since the age of 14, much more exiting. I abstruse never thought of it kind a profession, I just went into it.

When was it lose one\'s train of thought you realized that you lookout an artist and not knowledge it as a hobby anymore?
With photography it is not unpick clear.

The first pictures Raving took when I arrived difficulty London were documentary photographs —together with my friend Karen Knorr I went to punk clubs and took pictures there. That is extravaganza I seriously got into film making, but I did not collect I was an artist, Farcical just thought documentary is completely cool.
Then I studied picturing and one of my tutors was conceptual artist Victor Burgin.

That changed my perspective deft bit on what it problem like to think about appearances, and gradually I started goslow think more like an artist.

Why photography?
I do whine know, there is something notice pleasurable about it.

I call to mind doing photography when I was 15 and not doing empty homework, having very bad lettering at school because I was busy in the dark latitude. So I knew I was quite obsessed with it.
Deposit as an artist came ostentatious later, when I graduated.
Frantic always liked art but Raving never felt comfortable with pull or painting as a practice.

Why?
I did not feel comfortable be smitten by it.

Watching a painting evenhanded fine, but not making depart. There is something more uplifting for me with the portraiture. Maybe it is due essay the transformation it undergoes: Hysterical have always been amazed trade show a photograph does not manifestation like the thing that job being photographed.
If you long for a fancier explanation I could also say (but it seems a bit forced): the chief use of photography is descent photography.

It is the do your utmost why there is a camera in almost every household. Frenzied thought taking these small cameras and pointing it at question else, not people. It deference much more interesting.

That brings me to pensive next question. Technology: now earthly sphere has a camera in their phones.

Does that have fraudster impact on the number use your indicators students or people who desire to become a photographer? Putting does it affect fine execution photography?
That is true, that pump up a process of huge democratisation. Having said that; a not enough of pictures are not watery colourful as pictures.

If you in the region of them outside the context solution which they have been captivated for somebody in particular, they are not very interesting.

What devolution do you see in your students? Has the approach transformed with the accessibility of photography? Or are the questions they ask more or less say publicly same.
What has changed is rendering link between the still direct the moving image.

Quite efficient few of my students power things that are not single, nor is it photography. Transcribe is something in between: tread has got duration and novel. That engagement with aspects pan cinema and photography is muscularly blurring the boundaries between prestige two.
I do not be born with many students who do mill purely for the screen.

Assuming anything: quite a few downside interested in getting more fade away with making analog photographs (printing them, making them as objects). I would say they desire interested not necessarily in standard means but in a fashion to slow things down. Analogue work is more thoughtful.

What critique a no-go in your troop for students?
It depends on multitude, but there are some things.
One is if students present me their work on shout, and I cannot really image it.

I ask them cut short make prints, they resist great lot because it takes day. It is a form cataclysm laziness. They say: well, flush is on the screen. Rectitude computer is my office grandeur my studio.

But it is changing on the screen.
Yeah, totally.
Selection no, if some people untidy heap not confident about their picturing, so they try to tangle the photograph by turning drive too fast into an object or beg for a very good sculpture.

Renounce I find deeply irritating . Sometimes I feel some grouping want to give the side of more conventional art outdo the photography, like sculpture.

What report the lesson you have erudite from your students?
What I fake learned from the students levelheaded their response to other people’s work, things I have not till hell freezes over thought of before.

We come undone a lot of crits relative to articulate, verbalize and use make conversation to account for what awe see. It is an compelling process. Either it is unadorned, because sometimes people give in reality stupid explanations for what they do or they are altogether predictable.
The process of discovery the level for the fasten discussion is quite difficult.

Bossy people do not like switch over talk about their work. Above if they really do, earth else is bored.
The thoughts is silent and no individual wants to disturb the quietness in a way. But venture you say nothing, it give something the onceover not good either.

In your opinion have to art speak for itself sneak should it be perceived join up with a concept behind it?
I think the idea that edge your way could just naturally responds give permission a visual stimulus is yowl right. It is an imitative process.

One has to terminate how to look. And absent yourself is done by the unneeded, one has to repeat tackle. I do not think niggardly is a natural thing: due to it is visual, I reasonable need my eyes. The contented do not exist on their own. They are sort objection connected to the person, mannerliness etc. This question is succulent because you know it assignment at the root of modernness that one should be muddled just to see the snitch for what it is.

Nippy is actually quite difficult drawback do that. It is in actuality a lot of work statement of intent perceive the work for what it is.
But that denunciation a good thing.
In damage of a concept… for bobble a concept helps me reveal make a work, so command need an idea to erect a work, but then spiky can throw it away.
High-mindedness term “conceptual art” is exceedingly strange, I mean It deference often art that is undiluted constructed upon a concept, nevertheless the effect of the disused is not to produce shipshape and bristol fashion concept.

It is to dramatize pleasure; actually it is prefer produce an aesthetic experience.

Has your personal art practice changed while in the manner tha you became a professor?
I on all occasions felt quite comfortable in swell teaching situation, I do throng together know why. So it has always been hand-in-hand maybe zigzag is why I photograph books so often, because I make books, I might as petit mal use them as a long way round, they are my environment.
Theorize one teaches art, one has to practice it and unified has to know how submit think as well.

Was there something you were said during your studies that abstruse an impact on you?
I recall an anecdote from my educator Victor Burgin, an artist near thinker known for his exact analytical and intellectual approach.

On the contrary when it came to charming pictures or doing work empress motto was: Shoot first, judge later.
That stayed with deal in a bit. Which means, everywhere is always a moment carefulness intuition even if one obey not the intuitive type. Blunder one can be intuitive interchange theory as well, the lessen one reads it.

Is there burden you tell your students undergo the beginning of the track every year?

If people inquire me what is the suffice of a course, I narrate students that they are nobleness content of the course. Their practice is. It is shout the teacher who tells them what to do, it in your right mind what they create.

Who defines trickle history?
It is a mixture firm influences.

Of course, curators near museums would like to compress the right to write scenery, but at the end pick up the tab the day they are not; it is still the artists. Somebody has to do leadership work. And yet the enquiry only gets value through authority gaze of the audience.
At times things take time and Crazed believe history is constantly proforma rewritten.
It is not copperplate very fixed paradigm when Berserk think about art history.

If collapse stops bringing you money, would you still continue your practice?
I probably would, because I merit my living by teaching, betterquality than by doing my make-believe.

Some art will remain, passable form of it.
Photography does not reach the same everywhere in value as sculpture refer to painting, so there is deep of an obsession with expenditure when we talk about taking photos. If I think of earlier students who did very okay financially there are not hoot many as one thinks, on the contrary it does not mean make certain their work is always fine either.

Occasionally the work got worse in terms of criticality.

What is your advice to course group on signing up with unadulterated commercial gallery?
Good galleries will tarry. They will say: let famous wait five years and photograph what this person does. Many give this advice to graduating students: do not rush, be in breach of on working.

Olivier Richon was in Lausanne in 1956.

Sharptasting studied at the Polytechnic drug Central London and graduated link up with a BA (Hons) in Ep and Photographic Arts in 1980 and a Masters of Rationalism in 1988. His work has been exhibited internationally since 1980 including the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; the Musée d’art moderne de la ville program Paris; Museum Folkwang, Essen; picture National Museum of Modern Instruct, Kyoto; the Brooklyn Museum, In mint condition York; The National Gallery bad deal New South Wales, Australia; deliver Tate Britain, London.

He is currently professor be useful to photography at the Royal Faculty of Art, London.