GESTE Paris

GESTE Paris Conversations

We continue our series of salon discussions with three dynamic and interactive conversations.

Sunday 12 November 2023 from 15:00.

Thank you to all our speakers and guests

and to all those who joined the streaming on instagram at geste.paris

15:15 Photography's Place in Today's Global Commercial Art Market: what’s trending?

Thierry Demont, a prominent dealer and market expert, will lead an insightful conversation on the positioning of photography within the current art market. Ania Freindorf, a skilled professional photographer and GESTE artist, will share strategies on attracting clientele and innovative approaches to leveraging her photographic expertise for generating income. Quentin Dupuy, a seasoned director in commercial music videos and photography, will provide an in-depth exploration of the prevailing demands of clients and how his specific working process delivers client’s wishes.

16:00 The Great Divergence: What is the Future of Image Making?

Tariq Krim, digital entrepreneur and oracle of things to come, will lead an illustrated talk on the future of image making, with art collector Julien Lafaye. Visual producer Amber Terranova presents the impact these tools have on photojournalism and society. The realms of synthetic and generative image creation, along with computational photography, are rapidly approaching a stage where the images produced are indistinguishable from conventional photographs. This progress prompts an exploration of the distinction between human creativity and artificial generation. Through live demonstrations and pertinent examples, the dialogue will delve into the artistic, ethical, legal, and commercial implications arising from this paradox in an AI-driven world. Topics encompass ownership, the essence of creativity, and how the ubiquity of future image generation will affect humanity.

16:45 Symbiotic Frontiers: Activating the museum archive / artist connection

Artists Shiva Lynn Burgos and Betsy Green illuminate the joys and challenges encountered while delving into museum archives and reserves. They explore methods for fostering symbiotic relationships that bolster not only the artist and the institution but also crucially push the frontiers of one's artistic expression. Burgos introduces Shadow Energies, her progressive cyanotype series produced with remote Papua New Guinean artists in tandem with the Museum der Kulturen Basel, Switzerland, a recent deep dive into the collection at Musée d’Archéologie de Nice Cimiez, France and her involvement in the Rockefeller Wing reconfiguration at The Metropolitan Museum, New York.

17:30 Cocktail reception: let’s nourish the conversation in an informal way!

Speaker’s Biographies

Thierry Demont is a highly experienced professional in the Fine Art Vintage and Contemporary Photography Market, having dedicated over two decades to this field in Europe and the US. Throughout his career, he has successfully managed various aspects of photography, including running galleries, organizing exhibitions, dealing with image rights, licensing, and overseeing Estates and Archives. His expertise extends to curating photography collections for private sale, commercial purposes, and auctions, offering a comprehensive understanding of the market.

Ania Freindorf is an artist, photographer/filmmaker based in the French Alps. Besides being the founder of NAKED GLACIERS association, she’s been working worldwide for over twenty two years, covering documentary, news and environmental issues. Her latest significant environmental work where she covered the aftermath of Cyclone PAM and other climate change-related subjects in the Pacific. Freindorf has been in the role of official photographer for UNESCO and various UN Agencies, NGO’s, governments and the private sector. She created the Humanus photo/artistic project where the subjects are naked men. She currently conducts workshops with the Leica Akademie in Switzerland for photography. Awards include: 5th FAPA - Fine Art Photography Awards, Honorable Mention Fine Art & Documentary Photo, Fotonostrum, Visa Pour l’Image par l’ANI, Partnership of The Monaco Chamber of Environment CEREM a Courchevel. Future exhibitions include Jardin Luxembourg, Paris.

Quentin Dupuy has always been passionate about images. Whether it's still or moving, he made his passion his work and he's now an experienced director and photographer. Working on a range of different projects, from commercials to music videos, or on more personal endeavors in fiction or photography, his trademark is to find the story, the heart of the emotions in each project; each shot a meticulous exploration of light, color and sentiment. His client list includes Celio, Renault, Cartier, Dior, Sartory-Billard, Protection Civile.

Tariq Krim @tariqkrim is a founder, product designer, and Tech philosopher based in Paris. Tariq has created several startups (Netvibes, Jolicloud) and is also the founder of the Slow Web Movement. He was a Tech advisor to the French government and has launched Cybernetica.fr, a publishing house and think tank on the geopolitics of the Internet. Tariq has also served as a distinguished member of our GESTE jury for the 2022 exhibition Meta_Contra_Verse.

Julien Lafaye is a young art collector who has been acquiring contemporary art since 2018. Originally focusing on art and artists with a perspective on United States history and culture, he has recently begun to broaden his scope. His collection ranges from paintings, drawings, photographs, textiles, and engravings to experimental digital algorithmic video and NFTs (so far).

Amber Terranova is a photo director, educator, and visual producer. She has served as education director for Magnum Photos and held faculty positions at the School of Visual Arts and the International Center of Photography. She worked as a photo editor at New York, Outside, PDN, The New Yorker, and People. In 2013 Amber was interim director at the Bilder Nordic School of Photography in Oslo, Norway. She judges multiple international photo competitions, serves as a nominator for numerous photography awards, and is an advisory council board member for CENTER Santa Fe.

Shiva Lynn Burgos is an artist, curator, art collector and public speaker. In 2016, she founded GESTE Paris as an annual curatorial platform showcasing experimental image-based artworks that go beyond traditional photography. Her contemporary, conceptual and often collaborative artistic practice positions itself within the unifying concepts of evolution, competition, natural and social selection. The artist is specifically concerned with how evolution presents itself biologically, architecturally and culturally. She integrates field-collected and found objects with contemporary materials and technology as a resource for examining the shifting value systems of provenance in relation to currency, spirituality and custom. Burgos supports the recognition of living indigenous cultures by creating a direct reciprocal link with global museum collections and ethnographic scholars.

Since 1987, GESTE artist Betsy Green has used analogue processes to question our relationship with nature and probe our concept of landscape through the creation of contemporary photographic works. A researcher and master of historical non-silver alternative photographic techniques, her storytelling is achieved through the lens of a nineteenth-century plate camera to create large-scale images. Green’s works are included in the Van Gogh Huis Museum, private and corporate collections.