Untitled (Boîte à prière, Istanbul, Novembre 2005)

1999 - Photography (Photography)
80 x 100 cm

This early photographic work by Fre?de?ric Nauczyciel, titled Untitled (Boîte à prière, Istanbul, Novembre 2005) , features a young man in religious attire reading a religious text from inside a glass prayer box. Seemingly truncated by the shadows cast upon his seated position, the man is dramatically illuminated by a white neon light above. The harsh synthetic light reflects off of the man’s white robe and the glass box to create a haunting, artificial glow. While the religious man is absorbed in his work, a curious tourist takes a glance at the book from which he reads. Nauczyciel notes that he was particularly drawn to the extreme lighting featured in this image. A commodity which came from the West in the 1970s, fluorescent lighting was adopted by hot and humid countries in the developing world for their coldness and economy. Thus, this image portrays Islamic ritual through a western lens, further complicated by the context of Turkey as an otherwise secular country, as evidenced by the tourist observing the man’s recital.

Fre?de?ric Nauczyciel is an artist working primarily in photography and film. His imagery is influenced by American photography, contemporary dance, cinema, and painting. Nauczyciel immerses himself in familiar, but inaccessible and often invisible people and communities that comprise his subjects, including neighbors, families, traders, butchers, stewards, performers, and adolescents. Collaboratively constructing photographs, films, and performances with his subjects, the images of Nauczyciel’s protagonists reach beyond portraits of identity alone to create spaces of intimate entanglement between the sitter and the viewer. Since 2011 Nauczyciel has deployed his work between the predominantly Black neighborhoods of Baltimore and the outskirts of Paris to focus on the cultural phenomenon known as voguing, framing this art form as a performative language of resistance.

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