Bruno Fontana

The architectural photographs by Bruno Fontana explore the representation of the landscape and the way in which man has shaped it, and is still shaping it. His artworks allow us to decipher everyday life, dispel our preconceptions and give us a better understanding of the modern story unfolding before our eyes.

Bruno Fontana, a photographer and entomologist of everyday life

An examination of the urban environment

Bruno Fontana is a contemporary photographer who examines the representation of the landscape, particularly the urban landscape: “I try to point out those things that we no longer see and that catch my eye“. These include housing, buildings and installations that bear witness to forms of appropriation of the land.

In the Silent forms series, Fontana draws attention to grain silos, ubiquitous and unchanging features of the French rural landscape. He sees these storage sites as silent witnesses to the permanence of rural identity. The photographer explains his exploration of the French countryside by saying: “I’m interested in the countryside from the angle of a little-known heritage. I’m working with a view to remembering“.

A photographic work bordering on the documentary

Bruno Fontana uses a rigorous methodology, imbued with sociological and even scientific analysis, to explore the urban environment and landscapes. In the Typologie series, the artist draws up a vast inventory of individual houses, caravans and even classrooms. In this work, which verges on the documentary, the photographer catalogues collective similarities and patterns. He patiently and relentlessly dissects the workings of contemporary society, questioning notions such as uniformity and mass culture.

An invitation to observe everyday life

Each of Fontana’s photographs is an invitation to take a different look at everyday life, to contemplate with care the shapes and buildings that surround us. In this way, the artist encourages the viewer to consider the question of difference and similarity, of the perception of the real and the unreal. The contemporary photographer’s images may be devoid of human presence, but they are reflections of society

Bruno Dubreuil, teacher and art critic, sums up Bruno Fontana’s approach of architectural photography as follows: “As an entomologist of everyday life, Bruno Fontana examines our living environments in detail, collecting and assembling forms and images that are pinned together and presented on boards.”

Taking an artisanal approach

A taste for experimentation

Bruno Fontana’s work is plastic photography. He uses a multitude of techniques: printing on metal, glass, concrete, etc. The artist explains: “I remain open to all practices as long as they feed into my artistic approach.”

In the Concrete Forms series, the artist extracts crude industrial forms – concrete blocks, dominoes and staircases – from their original context and elevates them to the status of sculptures using a non-reproducible printing technique that dates back to the second half of the 19th century. Bruno Fontana notes: “It makes for quite surprising shapes on a blank page, a setting that makes them precious“.

In the Inscape typology series, a tribute to the inventor of the sleeper cars George Pullman (1831-1897), the photographer uses the cyanotype print, an old negative monochrome photographic process, to obtain a Prussian blue or cyan blue photographic print.

An artisanal approach to photography: the example of Urban Wallpapers

Bruno Fontana insists on an artisanal approach to the production of his photographs. This claim is already apparent in his choice of prints and his taste for testing new ways of doing things. This dimension also comes to the fore at the start of the process, when the landscapes are scouted and shots are taken.

The Urban Wallpapers series, for example, took time and patience. In 2009, Fontana had access to 140 flats in a building emptied of its inhabitants before it was demolished. Over a period of 5 days, he surveyed the place and looked at the ordinary snatches of the lives of former tenants or owners. This period of suspension lasting several days proved crucial to his creative process.

“It takes four times as long to create your own look“: the journey of a self-taught artist

A passion for photography and architecture

Born in 1977, Bruno Fontana spent his childhood near Paris, where he still lives and works. He admits he feels more at home in a forest of concrete than trees. He developed a keen interest in architecture at a very early age. Having grown up in Seine-Saint-Denis, the contemporary photographer has gradually turned his attention to large housing estates, which he examines as residential units.These observations and curiosity still permeate his work. Fontana also developed a passion for contemporary photography, taking his first steps in a photo club at the age of 20. He will never stop doing this.

The Düsseldorf School

His passion for photography has also been nourished by the influence of the great figures of photography, notably those of the Düsseldorf School, initiated by Bernd (1931-2007) and Hilla Becher (1934-2015) at the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf in the 1970s. This duo focused on black-and-white photographs of German industrial landscapes and strongly influenced the next generation, including Andreas Gursky (born 1955). Fontana follows in this tradition, paying homage to the Düsseldorf School while at the same time proposing variations and a singular vision.

Exhibitions and awards

The contemporary photographer has won several awards for his work, including the SFR Jeunes Talents prize at Les Rencontres d’Arles (2013) and the Moscow International Photo Award (2015). His work has recently been exhibited at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Carcassonne (2019), the Rencontres d’Arles (2017) and the Shenyang Festival of Industrial Photography (2016), among others.