Seb Janiak | The Kingdom by Fred Torres Collaborations

A F R E D TO R R E S CO L L A B O R AT I O N

O h nobly born,

That which is called death has now come, Now thou are experiencing the radiating light of reality. — The Tibetan Book of The Dead

The sublime, in the fullest, richest and most honest sense of the word can be seen here in Seb Janiak’s series, The Kingdom. As we stare at his enduring abstractions of light and undulating skies which stretch the past, present and future, we too as viewers can be absorbed into the multiple timelines of the expanding universes. Emerging from a solid context of photographic history, Seb Janiak tips his cap to the old masters of photography, and brings forth the enlightened lessons learned by the early masters of photographic montage techniques, pioneered by Edward Steichen and Henry Peach Robinson. Janiak’s latest photographic series is guided by one major influence, a prevalent character which is interwoven through every inch of printed paper and blossoms in each photographic pixel. That character is The Tibetan Book of The Dead, or the Bardo Thodol, a guidebook for the deceased to travel through to the after world. However, if we are to fully understand the shades of conceptual depth in The Kingdom series and its exploration of death, then we too must dissolve ourselves from the present and travel back to Seb Janiak’s past. As a child Janiak had a talent for drawing, and like many creative souls he didn’t enjoy the linear conformity of formal education - after expunging himself from school, Janiak began working in a video production company as a graphic designer with no aspirations to be an artist. Working with a machine called the Quantel Paintbox, a device used for television and film design production, Janiak had the ingenuity to begin taking photos with it. It was this spark of foresight which was the genesis for a whole future genre of photography and technical standards to come. It granted him permission to frolic in new creative dimensions allowing him to combine photo fantasy with reality. This inevitably garnered him a lot of notoriety in his profession and presented his name and talent across Europe. Soon Janiak would collaborate with Philip Stark whom at one point said “Janiak was the first, I believe, to create places, atmosphere and creatures from nothing. As a pioneer, he has laid the foundations of an art often since imitated but this always done in poor taste, sinking into futility, or even vanity. Without this such copies can only be sterile.”

Photographing in this way was completely unprecedented and inevitably became the precursor technology to digital photography and photoshop. Janiak himself has a jovial attitude towards it when he reminisces, “I was the first to use this technology - the grandfather of digital photography.” While still a rosy cheeked young man, Janiak discovered a new process he named “Digital Matte Painting.” It involves an image numerically composed and retouched from several digital shots. These are entirely homogenous shots with striking realism that gave him a new technique to formulate and express his concepts. Paint Matte became to Janiak (and the world) what the charcoal stick was to the paleolithic stonemen drawing on the cold walls of the El Castillo cave forty thousand years ago - a transformative power that allowed new avenues of expression. It was soon after, that Janiak became interested in geological landscapes and depicting the ephemeral nature of cities. His first Parisian show “Paris de 2044 a nos jour” was a culmination of work consisting of massive pictures portraying deserted and decaying cities slowly retreating back to nature. Janiak explains himself that these are not necessarily cities in our future or past which have been forgotten, rather these are cities of a parallel universe, that they express the story of time. It is these major themes of - the unseen - the parallel universe - and the dimensions of time that Janiak pursues in his later works. The success of the Paris de 2044 show and the widespread recognition of Janiaks progressive techniques and talent led to him being courted by fashion magazines and the video music industry where he worked for ten years. Here he made strides establishing his own production company, Studio 99, producing videos for an eclectic range of musicians including Daft Punk and Janet Jackson and Wu-Tang Clan. However, in 2001 Janiak’s health began to severely decline. A form of polyarthritis left him unable to walk, stranded in his apartment and living an increasingly isolationist life Janiak confided that, “life can be hard in a big city when you can’t use your legs, it’s more difficult, you are smaller...but it gave me a new perspective on my entire life.” It is during this time that Janiak’s ailing body led him to an internal healing process. For several years he isolated himself into his newly purchased factory where he had constructed a studio in Montmartre. Then on a trip to Iceland, the mysterious forces of the universe moved positions again, introducing Janiak to a Shaman healer and master acupuncturist who presented him with a new approach to heal his mind and body. It was to be an emotional, spiritual and physical transformation. In Janiak’s own words, which he says with a chuckle, “the healer gave me the ability to walk again, he brought the energy back into my legs, and today I can walk!”

As the winters drifted past and the autumns rose and fell, Janiak became stronger and wanted to begin working again. Soon after recuperating, he totally immersed himself back into the art scene. However, in 2007 tragic circumstances struck again when his fiancé and partner of six years, Eun Jin Lee, died at the age of twenty seven in an accident. It was from this moment onwards that Janiak decided to pursue a career which only involved the truest form of artistic expression possible. Henceforth, it became utterly apparent that The Kingdom series was that form of expression - thus it was born.

O h nobly born,

Do not be enticed by the soft light of the gods, It is an obstacle to enlightenment. — The Tibetan Book of The Dead

Borrowing aesthetic inspiration from Gustave Dore’s allegorical depictions of heaven and conceptual merit from The Tibetan Book of The Dead, Seb Janiak’s The Kingdom conceptualizes in a hyper-realistic expression the experiences we will have after we die. Seb Janiak reprises the Digital Matte format by using a combination of photocollages (each cumulous cloud is photographed in isolation) and matte photographic painting. Upon seeing a thunderous storm arrive off the coast one day, Janiak equipped with only his small camera began to intuitively take photos and snapped a series of dramatic clouds. It was by collecting thousands of separate thunderstorms, clouds and images like these that granted Janiak enough material for his intricate photomontage process. The act of absorbing and capturing the sky and clouds has now become an organic one for Janiak as he regularly gazes at the clouds, collecting images and concepts. Utilizing double exposure, every image in The Kingdom is layered in a seamless fashion. Seb reverted back to an analogue photographic processes. The only thing photoshop is used for is cutting and layering, Janiak reiterates. There is absolutely no retouching. This ultra manual approach requires an intuitive and exhaustive knowledge and experience in photography and photomontage. It is in some respects an homage to the classic craftsmanship of the British pictorial

photographer Henry Peach Robinson, which demands a skill and sensitivity towards understanding aesthetics, shape and form. It is in essence, knowing how to weave the poetry of the sky.

However, Janiak does not wish for his technical prowess to obfuscate the message that is being delivered in his picture. That would be like being dazzled by a bird adorned with such stunning crimson coloured feathers that we no longer even notice its song. However, the song is the important message. It is the song that touches us most deeply. The Kingdom series of photomontages draws inspiration from The Bardos or Stages of Life people go through after they die, which is depicted in The Tibetan Book of The Dead. There are three Bardos or stages that a person must go through before they can be reborn, and each stage is a test. The Chikhai Bardo or Bardo of the moment of death, the Chonyid Bardo or Bardo of the experiencing of reality, and the Sidpa Bardo or Bardo of rebirth. The overarching theme is that death is inevitable, but it is not the end, next is a rebirth and expansion of the consciousness. Light plays an important symbolic role in each Bardos in The Tibetan Book of The Dead. The white light in each Bardo is most significant, which is reflected in Janiak’s photos. The white can represent a level of guidance - a comforting direction to go towards. It is the “white translucent light of guidance”. However, in the second Bardo stage it can also be an unnecessary distraction, a temptation or a test and the person in transition must always remain centered. The depiction of heavy tenebrous woven clouds in Jankia’s photos may ignite tingles of trepidation inside of us, however, there exists a duality. The dark clouds are contrasted by the varying shades of white. Janiak titillates the viewer with his depictions of the tremendous weight of clouds floating in the air- simply resting upon the sky, something of a paradoxical delight. There is a certain fluidity and sense of humour which percolates through Seb Janiak’s personality, although superficially this might seem at odds with his subject matter in The Kingdom, upon reflection it makes perfect sense. He discusses his work in a genial manner – effervescent in conversation about the heaviest of topics, that of death, tragedy and of course life or rather afterlife. For perhaps it is the appreciation of death that makes life a tad more palatable, makes us drunker on daily joys and makes the honeyed pot ever sweeter. And why Seb Janiak can reflect on the often regarded heavy matter of death with such a light touch. For all of us, a culmination of life experiences have brought us to this point. Janiak’s photomontages points us toward a real yet metaphorical place which is transcendental and illusionary, dreamlike but based on the realities of the universe.

In essence to fully understand our lives we need to consider fully our death. Seb Janiak has a determined sense of inner exploration that sees him reaching for the heavens in his latest exhibition, The Kingdom. We are allowed to see in exacting and detailed abstraction what the afterlife could be like. It is both a hyper-realistic and abstractionistic approach to death.

In many ways, The Kingdom is Seb Janiak’s most personal and wonderfully vulnerable work yet. The Kingdom is a startlingly beautiful attempt to think about the unseen and to question what lies beneath the surface. It lends a hand and welcomes us to leave our selves, to travel with the celestial stars and into the ever expanding universe.

—

Stephen O’Farrell

O h nobly born,

Be not attached to this world, Be not distracted, Do not fear. — The Tibetan Book of The Dead

THE KINGDOM Behind, 2013 Confusion, 2013 Sun Above Clouds, 2008 Duality, 2013 Le Royaume, 2013 Ether, 2013 Elevation, 2013 Overture, 2009 Above, 2009 Above, 2010 Hope, 2012 Deluge, 2012 The City Under, 2010 Bardo Thodol, 2011 Bardo Thodol, 2010 Peace End, 2013 Catchers of Heaven, 2010 Dyauh, 2009 Falling Sky, 2013 Loi Spectrale du Rayonnement, 2011 Fear, 2011 Le Royaume, 2009 Deep Blue Sea, 2013 The Space Between Us, 2013 Moon Above Clouds, 2008 Stellar Lights, 2008

EXHIBITIONS AND ART FAIRS

2013

Berlin, Germany | Preview Berlin Art Fair | September 19 - 22

2011

2006

Hamburg, Germany | Archaelogy of Elegance | Deichtorhallen Museum

2001

Paris, France | Cutlog Contemporary Art Fair | October 20 - 23

Munich, Tokyo, New York, London, Los Angeles, Milan | Archaelogy of Elegance | Traveling Exhibition

Paris, France | Seb Janiak | Art Book Release | Mid October

1991

Paris, France | Fotofever | November 10 - 12, 2011

Solicitation to expose shots to Berlin, Munich, Hong-Kong, Los Angeles

2010

Paris, France | Former Musée des Automates

2009

Miami, FL | Art Basel Miami Beach | Naomi Campbell Retrospective | December 2 - 7, New York, NY | Art Photo Expo Gallery

2008

2006/7

Santiago de Compostela, Spain | NOOVO International Fashion and Photography Festival Barcelona, Spain | BAC Festival, Festival d’Art Contemporain de la ville de Barcelone Paris, France | Commissaire: Marion de Beaupré Miami, FL | In Fashion Photo, Art Photo Expo during Art Basel Miami Beach

Worldwide Premiere | Paris de 2044 à nos jours | Exposition of the first Matte-Painting

1987

Freeze Frame | First International Exhibition of Digital Photography EXECUTIONS, DIRECTIONS

2010/11

2007/8

La Conspiration d’Orion | Writer, Producer, & Setting of Short Film | Official selection of Sitges Short Film Festival, Spain

2006/9

Kronenbourg 1664 | Worldwide Campaign | Prize for the best advertising, alcohol category Mitsubishi | Worldwide Campaign

2005

Yamamoto Cologne for Men | Worldwide Campaign

2004

Yamamoto Cologne for Men | Worldwide Campaign Mano Solo | Album Cover Samsung USA | Photography Campaign

2003

Album covers for Ophélie Winter, Lady Laistee Dizzee Rascal (Grande-Bretagne) | Video Clip L’Oréal Studio Line advertising film L’Oréal campaign with Beyoncé Knowles Mitsubishi - Colt | Worldwide Campaign

2001/2

Conception and Direction of DVD Vanity 9, First worldwide exclusive musical production on DVD format (Compilation house illustrated by exclusive video clips) Ultraviolet | Worldwide Advertising Campaign for Film and Photoshoot for Paco Rabane Givenchy | Worldwide Makeup Campaign Collistar | Worldwide Campaign Avalanches Production and Europa Corp | Writing for a full-length film

2000

1999

Concept film for Philippe Starck (Boutiques, J-P Gaultier)

1998

Canal Satellite | Euro RSCG-BETC Agency | Series (5) Advertising

1997

Creation of 99 Production (Ninety Nine) Direction for Janet Jackson, Method Man, Daft Punk, Paul Frèches Philippe Starck | Schragger Hotels | Conceptual Direction

1992/5

Direction for NTM, Sinclair, MC Solaar, Jean-Louis Aubert Guerlain, Jourdan, Nike | Worldwide Campaigns

This catalog was published in a limited edition to accompany the exhibition. THE KINGDOM Seb Janiak November 14, 2013 - January 11, 2014 Fred Torres Gallery, 505 West 28th Street, New York, NY 10001 fredtorres.com All images ÂŠ Fred Torres Gallery, courtesy of the artist Seb Janiak ISBN: 978-0-9857992-2-9 This catalogue may not be reproduced in whole or in part, or stored in a retrieval system and/or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic media or mechanical, including illustrations, photocopy, film or video recording, internet posting or any other information storage system without the written permission of Fred Torres Gallery. Curated by Fred Torres Catalogue design by Daniel Knowles