INAUGURAL DIALOGUE

To open BIP2014 on March 15th 2014, we are honored to welcome Philippe Chancel (F) and Samuel Bianchini (F) at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Liège for an inaugural discussion on the theme of BIP2014 in collaboration with the enseignement secondaire artistique à horaire réduit (ESAHR – part-time secondary art education).

Philippe Chancel was born in 1959 at Issy les Moulineaux and lives in Paris. For over twenty years he has pursued photographic experience in the complex, unstable and yet fruitful domain between art, documentary and journalism. His work is constantly evolving and tackles the changing the status of images confronted with what constitutes “an image” in the contemporary world. He has gradually established a new approach to documentary photography. He began photography at a young age, and went on to study economics at the University of Nanterre and journalism at CFPJ in Paris. His work has been widely exhibited and published in France and abroad in major magazines worldwide. His works appear in numerous public and private collections and he continues to work on orders for major cultural institutions in France and abroad.

Samuel Bianchini was born in 1971 in Nancy. He has studied art from various directions: Fine Arts (Post Diploma, Ecole regionale des Beaux-arts, Nantes), Decorative Art (ENSAD, Ecole nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs, Paris), Applied Arts (Ensaama, Ecole nationale supérieures des arts appliqués et des métiers d’art, Paris), Arts and Crafts (CNAM, Paris) and Visual Arts (University Paris 1 – Panthéon-Sorbonne). He lives and works in Paris. His research focuses in particular on the impact of technological devices on our modes of representation, new forms of aesthetic experiences and socio-political organizations. For this research, he collaborates with scientists and research laboratories in engineering.

Samuel Bianchini has begun a theoretical project that is closely linked to his artistic work, and, after obtaining his doctorate at the Palais de Tokyo with a personal exhibition, he is now a member of the Calhiste laboratories (University of Valenciennes) and Citu (University of Paris 8). He is a teacher – researcher (Senior Lecturer) at the University of Valenciennes and EnsadLab, the research laboratory for the École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs (Paris). His work is regularly exhibited in France and abroad.