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CRAVAT & BADA

CRAVAT & BADA

© Cravat & Bada

Collective composed of Laurent MEURICE et Olivier BADA, born 1981 in Liège.

Live and work in Liège.

Personal Website : www.studio33.be

The photographs by Cravat and Bada are lively, coloured, playful and exuberant. They dowse and immerse us, push us totally dressed from the edge of the swimming pool into a fresh bath of tonic and sparkling images. Photographic bubbles ; it's light, you feel like lifted up in the air. Photographs which stand up straight, cock a big snook at the public and give a big kick in the ass ! A smart and crazy approach. Better than a lifting.


Cravat and Bada's photographs, accessible on www.studio33.be, are cleverly orchestrated from the casting until the distribution of the roles, often premeditated and committed like perfect crimes : sketches and documents relating intentions attest to it and allow us to see through the scenery of their creation, the mental studio of their scaffolding. These photographs take us to the spectacle. In the front-row we attend paintings, reconstitutions, frescos, stagings and all kinds of badinage… Everything is arranged like in a musical, there's something like rock and roll in these very black-yellow-red,  Belgian Blue like images, pure pork photographs smelling of fries, on the ball, happy and in excellent form. Have a look at it!


Tintin, the King, The Queen, our football teams, dad, mom, Belgian Blue, the housemaid and myself, painting and History of photography, TV series… everything is demystified. With humour and good mood. Without hate. Our revised and adjusted culture is regenerated and dynamised. In their photographs one feels like in the middle of a hilarious pillow fight. There's something going on in each corner of the image, it's moving and swinging.


Apanage of their young age, Cravat and Bada's photographs seem to escape from the prevailing crisis and resentment. Their appreciation is rising. These effervescent images rich in vitamins snap like the crack of a whip propitious for the confrontation of things. If they redirect the real by mocking it, they are also alimented by a pronounced and harsh sense of criticism; they are directed towards the future and are its sharp-sighted overall picture. They are under way, ahead.
They are, as their authors are, generous.

Well, Cravat and Bada !
Come by at my office, I still have to have a word with you!


Jean Janssis, August 2009


CRAVAT & BADA