“A sleeping man holds in a circle around him the thread of the hours, the order of years and of worlds. He consults them instinctively upon awaking and in one second reads in them the point of the earth that he occupies, the time past before his awakening; but their ranks can be mingled or broken. By the morning after a moment of insomnia, the sleep catches him while reading, in the position different from his usual sleeping one, it’s sufficient if his raised hand blocks and moves away the sun, in the first minute of his arousal he will not know what time it is anymore, and will think that he just fell asleep.
Marcel Proust « In Search of Lost Time »
Proust came last. In the beginning there was a single photo I did of a friend sleeping in a hotel bed. There was something disturbing and attractive about the photo, something immediate and something eternal, something personal and something universal. In fact, it’s the duality of the image that made me want to go farther and explore it. So the number four gave way to number 1, 2, 3, 5, 6 and 7. I knew the series was completed when by coincidence I stumbled upon a timely citation of Proust who gave yet another meaning to sleep.
Exhibitions:
- "Happiness" - Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris, 16 January - 30 March 2008
- "A hotel photo, an artist's view", Théâtre de l'Odéon, Paris (10/6 - 10/24/08)
Press:
- SFR Young Talents Magazine n1, "Le Bonheur selon Yury Toroptsov", February 2008, Emilien Bernard
- Le Photographe, "Yury Toroptsov. Laureat SFR a la MEP", February 2008, Herve Le Goff
Video:
- Maison Europeenne de la Photographie (Jan 16, 2008)
Thanks to Stepan, Armand, Aurélien, Julien, Frédéric, Philippe et Patrick.
