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Eric the photographer's 00 :10 :48 seconds of fame

2002

Photographs|Text|Video

 

Otto Berchem starts from a true story that took place in 1999. Giuseppe Guerini, a cyclist in the Tour de France, all alone and meters away from the finish line was knocked down by a fan named Eric. As he was taking a picture, Eric blocked the leading rider, who fell to the ground. Despite this incident, the Guerini went on to victory, which was filmed live on television. The artist goes back to the origin of the fact, investigates, and finds a man who is ashamed of his act, stating that he acted foolishly and apologized.

Three sentences written on the wall, two photographs taken by the man at the time of the crash, and the video of the Tour are set on a pink background, the color of the shirt of the cyclist. In contrast to the media’s point of view of the act, the artist presents one that exists in the anonymous individual, revealing a gap between the time of the act and a guilty state of consciousness, retrospectively returned to a normative temporality. But like a Borges story, we do not know if the artist has really found the man he sought.

Anne Bonnin