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for GEORGES ROUSSE
GEORGES ROUSSE
1947 -
George Rousse (1947 - present) is a French photographer and installation artist. He makes large color photographs of old buildings, dilapidated and disused stairwells and rooms, in which he has drawn or painted across the surfaces; these images were initially figurative and suggested past inhabitants of the buildings. From 1984 Rousse worked with abstract shapes that, from the particular monocular view of the photograph by which they are documented and displayed, have illusionistic depth and form, appearing to float in space. The installation is removed after documentation, leaving the photograph as the sole record. The three-dimensional forms, ordinarily exhibited as photographs and preparatory sketches, are laboriously constructed perspectival illusions that refer to the tradition of trompe l'oeil in painting. The sleight of hand involved in their production is not always evident in the photographs, however, which can appear themselves simply drawn on.
Towards the end of the 1980s Rousse's approach to perspective, photography, drawing and optical illusion broadened, as seen in UNTITLED (1986), a photograph of an empty room onto which a grid and red cloud appear to have been drawn, although both were in fact drawn in the room itself. Further developments through the 1980s and 1990s included cutting into the building and adding extra walls and surfaces, to complicate further the final image, as well as the increased use of color to create a more seamless illusion. The effect of looking into one of Rousse's installations is that of looking through a window onto a shape that has a magical, metaphysical quality, a projection of one's own perception and cognition. Rousse lived and worked in the Villa Medici, Rome, in 1986-7, and in 1988 won an award from the International Center of Photography, New York.
Stonard, John-Paul. "George Rousse." Grove Dictionary of Art Online [http://www.groveart.com/shared/views/article.html] accessed 5/15/07.
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