Céline Duval

our cousins, our parents, our friends.

they look at us, they smile at us. one is nearly annoyed by this affection which isn`t directed at us, the voyeurs. but they are truly generous: they would have kissed us like good bread if they had known us! the unknown from photo albums, lost to flea markets and antique shops, plundered by celine duval, are ours, all of us who will prolong with out shame the primary genre of the family photo, whatever the distance which otherwise sharpens our critical examination. doomed liked all of us to obliteration, they live a second life. without name, without biography, without history, their existence the only witness of their depth.

pierre michon wrote about the tiny lives`. this title would be suitable to the review of 4 pictures. forgotten and rediscovered, thrown away and rehabilitated, dispersed and reconstructed in families, these tiny images are illustrative of tiny destinies, in a tiny edition, writing a soap opera that isn`t there. the paper in a black box. the grey is elegant. sent by post, the name of the subscriber indicates in advance the interpretation of the series that he is going to make and which he doesn`t yet know. and the cellophane makes a window. photo-stories were talkative and conventional. the `new photos` of celine duval are mute and improbable. it`s the reader who writes the story. each one, his own! there used to be cartoon strips made up of three pictures. here is a review in four images. it`s a genre. a new genre.

an amateur.