Christopher Anderson: Bleu Blanc Rouge

New York-based Magnum photographer Christopher Anderson captures portraits, candid moments and still lifes throughout the United States, France, Italy, Spain, and Germany. Bleu Blanc Rouge presents Anderson’s playful series of color photographs in a magazine-like style, allowing readers to locate recurring visual elements.

The signed catalog, originally published on November 30, 2018, corresponds to an exhibition of the same name at The Ravestijn Gallery in Amsterdam, which was held from November 2 – December 22, 2018.

In this playful and poetic series, Andersons ties images together in a stimulating way: portraits, candid moments, still lifes. They are photographs taken in passing, carefully arranged together. Some of these images tell a clear story; others are less straightforward or even stray towards the abstract. By showing these divergent, isolated moments as a collection, Anderson invites viewers to make connections themselves and to question their meaning and coherence.

A close-up of a face, spilled cherries, the interior of a car. Light reflected in a puddle of rain or in the windows of a skyscraper. Anderson presents his images as pieces of a puzzle. The common thread that unifies the images is formed by recurring visual elements: the color red, specific forms, and patterns, a spectrum of sunlight that marks the end of the day. The palette is charged with a particular emotionality and intimacy that is at the heart of Anderson’s image. The images are both contemplative and urgent at the same time. Anderson’s photographs are not just observations of a fleeting moment. Rather, we feel the presence of the photographer and his connection to the moment depicted.

Together, the images in ‘Blue Blanc Rouge’depict a vision that flirts with the language of cinema. The dynamic between movement and stillness in ‘Bleu Blanc Rouge’ resembles a series of stills from a never- made movie. Each image is a moment distilled from a larger narrative, just as the city is a mosaic of different lives, stories and captured moments.
(via Magnum Photos)

About the Author

Christopher Anderson was born in Canada and grew up in west Texas. He first gained recognition for his pictures in 1999 when he boarded a handmade, wooden boat with Haitian refugees trying to sail to America. The boat named the Believe In God, sank in the Caribbean. In 2000 the images from that journey would receive the Robert Capa Gold Medal. Christopher is a member of Magnum Photos. He is the author of four monographs of photography.

https://www.christopherandersonphoto.com/