Artists Registry

Photos exhibitions (trilogy)

1- On the traces of the Beast.
2- Beast’s world.
3- Oil against water.

Here are twelve images registered on 35mm film (color and black and white), which subjects were mainly tracked in Montreal and New York, between 1982 to 2002. This work includes two photomontages, identified as such at the bottom of the enlargements. Most of these images are relative to the tragic event by analogy.

Twenty years have passed before I decided to prepare a first exhibition. Into these decades, I stepped from the darkroom to the digital era, without expecting the Beast beyond my black and white emulsions. Since the first film, it's footprint waited to appear.

Following September 11, 2001, shaken just like most people by those dramatic events, I sought prophecies old and contemporary, curious to perhaps discover visions on this subject, but except for quatrain of Michel de Nostradamus, much inspired I have to admit, I have to acknowledge that my quest was, for the most part, unsuccessful. On the other hand, some of St-John’s prophecies appeared so right about the current state of our planet, that they re-orientated my research. I will develop on that subject later on, because I would like to focus on my motivation about that investigation of prophecies. I have first to confess that I am that kind of person who believes in signs, revelations or visions.

Some personal and modest souvenirs appeared at the beginning of my quest. Not only that memory of the Twins, I had seen for the last time, during an afternoon of august 2001, three weeks before the attacks, under the shadow of the towers, with a friend. We felt a sad mood on almost everybody’s face during our stay… as usual we thought… Than I took a last shot of the WTC, lay down on the ground, before we left. But the most significant souvenir on that purpose was my first night in New-York, in 1986. Four images of that trip are presented in this gallery. I was student in cinema at the Montreal University, and I arrived in Manhattan around midnight. Tired, no one in the group accepted to follow me outside, at that moment, so I walked alone in the streets, and discovered with curiosity the frenetic night life of our neighbourhood’s hotel. On my way to nowhere, two young fellows tracked me to probably steel my camera, I thought. I had to rapidly entered in a record dealer and strolled over the records and tapes. Safe in that store, I finally bought a Laurie Anderson’s recording, "Big Science", and I went back to my room. In fact, I bought this album for the song “O Superman”, that I've heard few weeks before. The lyrics of that song sound like a premonition of the tragic events. After september 11, I realized on line, that I was not the only one who believed in the interpretation about these "coincidences".

“On the traces of the Beast” was a retrospective composed of 40 images, presented in 1987 at Georges Laoun Opticien gallery, in Montreal, which is actually my introduction of a trilogy. With that first part, I invited visitors to seek the Beast by themselves, and probably find their own relationship with the phenomenon. Now, I am preparing a second exhibition, inspired on the same theme, called "Beast's world", about the representation of my own interpretation of the Beast of Apocalypse; kind of reincarnation of the prehistoric's eras in our modern petrochemical world. "13:4. And they adored the dragon which gave power to the beast. And they adored the beast, saying: Who is like to the beast? And who shall be able to fight with him?" If we considere petroleum as an organic matter, we can realize that living liquid drives the world. My own interpretation: The dragon became petroleum and the Beast represant the "animal" who eats that energy. For me, the hydrocarbons that flow from the abyss in asphalt rivers, motorways, boulevards, sterile parkings, plastic passenger compartments,tires, motor's oils and others petrochemical derivatives forms of fossil fuels; were metamorphosis in merciless creature, such as the manifestation of a dramatic evolution, like the termination of the dinosaure's era was, for example. Economic abundance comes from oil, such is the capacity of the petrodollars, and such is the power of the Beast, because its industrial empire involves us all up to the limits of international conflicts.

I propose my work for exhibitions or license on copyrights. If you are interested to see my image bank, please write me about what you are looking for, than I'll send you samples.

Otherwise, I am available for photo shooting...

Thanks for your visit and your comments.

François Bergeron, photographer.