Photographer Emile Rubino dives into the wave of images

Rather than fearing the “wave of images” washing over us on a daily basis, the Brussels-based photographer Emile Rubino integrates it in a wider reflection on representation and the status of the image today. At Affiliate, the emerging artist shares his ideas about photography and its contemporary challenges.

When we ask to take his picture to illustrate this interview, Emile Rubino (France, 1992) suggests replacing his image with another one. “I think it would be more appropriate for our discussion about the status of the image,” he explains, while invoking Louise Lawler’s “Recognition Maybe, May Not Be Useful”. In 1990, that New-York artist chose to send a portrait of actress Meryl Streep to substitute it to her own face, following a magazine’s request. Should we consider this explicit reference as an act of defiance? For Emile Rubino, a Master of Fine Arts graduate, which he obtained in 2017 at the ICP-Bard College of New York, it’s more a question of surveying the mechanics of recognition in the art world. In a world saturated with personal representations, where visual identity becomes an all but neutral shortcut, it is about shaking up the mechanics of a face being a tool of recognition.

This seemingly modest act is reflecting a conception of the image which, according to him, goes beyond a simple personal document. Emile Rubino prefers to be perceived through the paradoxes addressed by his pictures. The paradox he chose to send is small in size: images of garden gnomes, on a scale of 1 to 1, branded from retail chain Action. Thrifted on a flea market, the little statues were the inspiration for a series of four photographs which will be shown at Affiliate, Wiels’ dedicated space for former residents.

And...Action

“A few years ago, I discovered that consumers could buy these gnomes for a few euros and participate in a photo competition, the ‘Action Spring Challenge’, which consisted in posting an image of the statue with a hashtag, in the hope of winning 100 euro,” Emile Rubino explains. “I was very interested in this object, made with the only purpose of being photographed. It’s also very meta, as these characters are carrying Action bags. Those bags are everywhere, they are a very prominent social marker in the centre of Brussels. They can often be spotted around homeless people, using them to carry all their belongings, on the arms of students or women with a lot of children. I took pictures in black and white to make them a bit more abstract – I did not want them to be too amusing – and I placed them in front of a backdrop with a detail from a painting by Marsden Hartley, an artist whose work has been used as the background of Fountain, art’s most famous urinal, when Alfred Stieglitz immortalised it upon Duchamp’s request. The first ever ready-made was photographed with a painting as a backdrop.”

A tool of displacement

For Rubino, garden gnomes are an illustration of this simplified, almost “foolish” visual language, which he uses to interrogate how everyday objects can embody a wider symbology when they are recontextualised. This approach reflects his interest in photography as a tool of confrontation and displacement, revealing the multiple meanings behind familiar icons.

Very early on, he tried to combine his interest for social issues and image creation by turning to photography as a direct and ambiguous language. In contrast with painting, he describes the pictorial nature of photography like a punk song: “No intro, no exit, just keep the middle.” For his work, Rubino most often uses a bellows photographic chamber, a scanner, and a printer. Nonetheless, this technical choice shows his desire for slowness and attention to details. This “slightly awkward” apparatus, without automation, forces rigorous manipulation, giving every single shot more intention and reflection.

Esperanto

For Rubino, the photographic chamber is an “enriching constraint.” “Photography speaks a universal language, a sort of esperanto,” he explains. “But as soon as it is sacralised, it’s still subject to criticism and debates over its artistic legitimacy. It is this displacement I am interested in.” The artist tackles the proliferation of images on social networks with a certain serenity, contrasting with the fears expressed by some artists of the previous generation. Where his predecessors dreaded a “wave of images” submerging and standardising perception, he observes this phenomenon as information with which it can be possible to work. “Unlike photographers who had this fear of seeing the codes of the image being shattered, I take it as a fact,“ he explains. He wants his approach to be more pragmatic: rather than fearing this visual overabundance, Rubino makes an effort to integrate it in a wider reflection on the image. By embracing this reality, he shines a light on the biases, expectations, and implicit framings imposed by the current image consumption, setting photography not as a refuge against hypermodernity, but as a tool to question its codes.

In addition to his artistic practice, and also to his conferences at ArBa-EsA, he assumes several roles allowing him to explore and share his ideas about photography and its contemporary challenges. He wrote among others for Frieze magazine, while co-directing his own independent publication, Le Chauffage. This commitment, both critical and editorial, enables him to take part in debates around art and image, while contributing to an artistic ecosystem he strives for. Namely, photography understood as an exploration space without limits, where the artist’s identity is diluting behind the diversity of forms and intentions.

Emile Rubino is showing his Springtime Challenge at Affiliate from 12 to 28/12, wiels.org