Belgian photographer Marc Steculorum (Antwerp, 1956) explores the possibilities of photography as a medium of discovery. He recognizes that the strength of photographs lies in their descriptive power, in their special relation towards the real world. His photographs in their raw directness show us a window to the present and do this with clarity and great authenticity, yet avoiding the usual trappings of photojournalism or art photography.
After studying film and photography in Brussels and Ghent in the early eighties, Marc Steculorum completed his first series of photos, documenting the VOORUIT building in Ghent, a socialist bastion, then in danger of demolition. Although it started as a studentwork on 35mm, he eventualy re-made this series in large format and color. From than on the large format camera would remain for years a constant in his working practice, however the color would soon be replaced by black and white.
In the following years Marc Steculorum would focus his work on his immediate environment. In a series called RUPEL, he photographed his place of youth, the region of the river Rupel, once a bustling industrial area, but now in the eighties in a state of paralysis, decay and slow mutation.
The highway connecting Brussels and Antwerp, the A12, was the subject of his next series. This stretch of asphalt between Belgium’s two largest cities, gave the photographer the opportunity to photograph his own Americana, without crossing the Atlantic.
In ATOMIUM, 1989 Steculorum experimented with the 8 X 10 camera and a wide-angle lens to show the interior of the Atomium, Belgium’s best known monument, built for the World Exposition in 1958. Once a symbol for a belief in progress through science and technique, the dilapidated structure sent a completely different message from the one it was originally meant to convey.
Around the same time he photographed the BERENDRECHT-lock in the Antwerp port, at that time the largest lock in the world. The photos in the series show the concrete artifact in all its immensity, just before the water was brought in.
Continuing his work with the large format camera and the wide angle lens, Steculorum showed in a series of night images the slow (and highly disputed) demolition of one of Antwerp’s most iconic buildings, the ENTREPOT. (1992- 1993) Ten years later he photographed the city of Antwerp, during the night, for a commisioned project around the Renaissance architect Vredeman de Vries. The photos were shown in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp.
In the spring of 1993 he started working on a series of photos showing the landscape and the people within the landscape during the Classics, the important bicycle races held in Belgium, France and Italy. For the photographer, the challenge was to work with the slow 8 X 10 camera in a situation that was rapidly changing, focussing on the people at the side of the road awaiting for the passage of the riders. This resulted in the series WIELERVOLK (1993- 2004), which was adapted not only into a book but also a range of simultaneous exhibitions in several Flemish cities.
Commisioned by the Province of Antwerp in 1999, Marc Steculorum made a series of photos in different schools, resulting in an exposition in the Antwerp Fotomuseum and also a book that he entitled SCHOOLBLUES.
In Greece, 2007 Marc Steculorum photographed the aftermath of the massive forest fires of the previous summer. The quiet, stark images of WINTER IN ZACHARO depict a landscape that seems beyond redemption.
Over the years Steculorum worked in his homeland, Belgium, a country politically and culturally divided, a land of contrasts (sic) par excellence, with a rich history and an present that seems at the same time surrealistic but also quiet banal. Marc Steculorum tries in this series BINNENLAND to combine all these elements.
Since 2007, Steculorum resides part-time in Italy, where he records the small things of every day life, in a series of photos called LITTLE ITALY.
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