François Halard: A Visual Diary
François Halard by Olivia Russin
Who doesn’t want to know what the inside of an artist’s home looks like? I know I do, and I couldn’t keep my eyes off of François Halard’s heavy volume A Visual Diary. Right from the start, it feels personal. You open the book and see scraps from a notebook, flying papers, pictures, doodles, scribbles, titles, receipts, travel tags… All the writing is handwritten, inviting you, as a diary would. It starts off in a very abstract way, with Luis Barragán’s architecture and bright serene colors, leading you into the homes of other artists and designers.
Halard Skectchbook, Arles 2019
The visual narrative flows smoothly from one home to another. In Rick Owens’s grey toned minimalistic home, floors are made of concrete and the walls are left unfinished, unpolished, contrasting with the intentionally, sparsely placed objects. This raw sense of space clearly reminds us of his collections, and draws attention to his singular aesthetic.
Halard Objects Collection, Arles 2018
From there, we move to Ugo Rondinome’s high ceilinged church-like updated home. Uniquely adapted for his large scale work and cadenced by assortments of small objects, the photographs of this home have the capacity to immerse you, at every turn, into a different environment. By looking at specific corners, François Halard captures Ugo’s motivation to play with space and texture, reminiscent of his art installations.
James Brown, Studio, Merida, 2015
Next is Andres Serrano’s eccentric home, which borrows religious European 17th century aesthetic, and seems to be filled with a strong divine energy. Andres Serrano’s home is entirely designed with wooden furniture, sculptures, a throne and various artifacts. These photographs present an impressive and intimidating space, which clearly echo the impressions and reactions to his work, and make us understand how deeply anchored he is in this religious world.
Saul Leiter, Studio, N.Y., 2017
Saul Leiter, Studio, N.Y., 2017
This is a book on interior design, but truly it’s a book alluring you into the world of these artists and François Halard’s interesting visual interpretation of them. This is not your typical interior design book. It is warm, up close and personal. He doesn’t photograph these houses to target furniture as a commodity, or to showcase their monetary value. Instead he uses photography to reveal aspects of each artist’s home, that, to him, say something about their world, from whichever corner of the house that may be, for each artist. To picture in some way the presence of these artists; their distinctive, original style of living, ironically through silent (but not so silent), inanimate objects.
