SAUVIN, Thomas - No More No Less

Signed by both artists, Kensuke KOIKE & Tomas SAUVIN, 2019

"In 2015, French artist Thomas SAUVIN acquired an album produced in the early 1980s by an unknown Shanghai University photography student.

The album comprises original negatives, silver prints, manuscript comments from an anonymous professor, and shows the student’s diligence in mastering the rules applying to the conventional portrait. This volume was given a second life through the expert hands of Kensuke KOIKE, a Japanese artist based in Venice whose practice combines collage and found photography.

The series, “No More, No Less”, born from the encounter between KOIKE & SAUVIN, includes new silver prints made from the album’s original negatives. These prints were then submitted to KOIKE’s sharp imagination, who, with a simple blade and adhesive tape, deconstructs and reinvents the images. However, these purely manual interventions all respect one single formal rule: nothing is removed, nothing is added, 'No More, No Less'. I
n such a context that blends freedom and constraint, KOIKE & SAUVIN meticulously explore the possibilities of an image only made up of itself." (publisher's note, © Jiazazhi, 2018)

Reviews by:
on ASX
Colin Pantall’s blog
Colin Pantall for PHmuseum
on LENS CULTURE
on COLLECTOR DAILY

Best Photobook of 2018 by DAVID SOLO
Best Photobook of 2018 by SIMON BAKER
Best Photobook of 2018 by COLIN PANTALL
Best Photobook of 2018 by FORREST SOPER
Best Photobook of 2018 by SEAN O’HAGAN
Kensuke interviewed on the BJP