Olivier Pin-Fat
‘Meat’
A book by Olivier Pin-Fat,
painfully handcrafted & published by Void.
Sold out from the publisher
Collector’s Edition is still available at our store.
“‘Meat’ is primarily about Body-Form, deformation, the flesh, the carnal. How all matter decays, transforms itself from one form to another and ultimately disintegrates into ash. Stacks of bone shards and ash, the human remains after cremation, appear like hotel pillows ready for laundry on a factory line in the morning. Biographies exist, momentarily, within slabs of frying flesh like gristle, fat, nerve or bone whilst the landscape looms outside, this endless city, ever-present, howling like a beast to chew you up and spit you out disfigured once more, or swallow you up completely once you emerge from this illusory sanctuary.”
Olivier Pin-Fat
Meat
Olivier Pin-Fat. In Bangkok. Outdated medium format colour films, along with 35mm monochrome films of various kinds. Embracing the accidental. The damage. The entropic surge.
His practice is all about the physicality of the materials he uses. Manipulating the films before and after the darkroom, in the end he prints what he feasibly can, what is “given” to him by his process.
As he puts it: “The scratches on the negatives are random, they’re not forced or designed, it’s not artifice, it comes from when I hang wet film and stroke the negatives all the way down in a streak with two fingers to get excess water off for more effective drying after a painfully rigorous developing process for the emulsions.”
Those “broken” photos suit perfectly this ‘Bangkok’ series, a city that according to Pin-Fat “it’s frayed, it’s choked, it’s bestial, it’s repetitive, it’s looped, it’s endless, it’s addictive, you smoke it and it smokes you, it’s an animal trap, it’s compelling chaos, it’s bait, it’s hunter, it’s life and it’s doom, it’s all teeth and jowls – a place to get lost in and in so doing have segments or steaks of meat bitten and torn out of you forever, or if not pieces, then your entirety.”
“The series is a culmination and liquidized assemblage, a collage or layering of all of these processes. It’s not an accident waiting to happen, it’s a gathering of the detritus and collecting of the remains from a crash that’s already occurred.”
Olivier Pin-Fat
“She spoke to me through gums. When she was born a boy, her German father had already flown back to Europe just like you would close a brothel door. Her past was a diffusion of buzzing neon lit hospital wards, operating theatres, and red light; I was surprised to see she had no penis, most of the lady boys I’d been with and photographed had dicks. She’d gone the whole way. She told me aside from all of the surgery she received and underwent to slowly over the years become a woman, that she’d been in three serious car accidents. It showed.
If you flicked through it all rapidly like you would a full deck of playing cards, the sound would be the same, a sharp shocking snap. Any card you randomly pull out, a slab of meat.”
The Book
‘Meat’ consists of 28 signatures printed in 6 different printing techniques: Offset, Silkscreen, Letterpress, Photocopy, Digital printing, Risograph, using 8 different paper stocks.
Each copy of ‘Meat’ will be painfully hand-bound by Void team.
Hand-binding 250 copies of a book this complex will last for several months, and each copy will be unique: dated and signed by the person who produced it.
‘Meat’ brings together more than 500 Olivier Pin-Fat's photographs, and 2 of his texts: one about the project and context of ‘Meat’, the other, about his approach to photography.
‘Meat’ comes in 3 different editions:
→230 copies of the handmade edition.
→20 collector’s edition copies containing 20 different handmade darkroom prints, printed, numbered and signed by the artist.
→ 5 one-of-a-kind artist’s book handmade by Olivier Pin-Fat.
The Collector’s Edition
Limited Edition of 20
This Collector’s Edition of 'Meat’ is the Standard edition + a print made in the darkroom by Olivier Pin-Fat.
Only 20 Collector’s Edition were made, and each comes with unique artwork, so no book comes with the same photograph. That makes those very unique editions. The run of each photo will be 5. And the book’s print will come with the 1/5 of those editions.
The Collector’s Edition comes wrapped in crops of the actual offset aluminium plates used to print the book.
The Artist Book
Limited Edition of 5
This is the first of 5 Artist books handmade by Olivier Pin-Fat. All of which will be unique. They are interpretations of the standard edition (published by Void – SEP '18).
Assembled in a monstrous dimension: 44 x 50 cm (closed) 88 x 50 cm (opened). The artist book is built from Black Fabriano paper and white Fabriano paper. Both, 300 gsm. The fiber structures within these papers give the object extra strength and flexibility.
It is comprised of hand-made darkroom prints by the artist. To be precise: archival hand-printed Ilford MGFB Matt fiber base medium weight baritone paper of varying sizes. You will find some original darkroom prints as big as 24 x 17,8 cm.
Pin-Fat also incorporated other materials supplied by Void. Offset test prints, metal plates Riso prints, photocopies, and so on. Not forgetting to mention many handwritten notes, peculiar to Olivier's work.
The cover is made of Nappa calfskin leather. The softest available Nappa leather in its highest quality. Red suede goes along the spine, and 5 bronze bolt screws bind the whole beast.
This object captures Olivier Pin-Fat's aura in book form.
Meat
Sold out
23,5 x 34 cm
336 pages
Numbered Limited Edition
Limited edition of 230 numbered copies
Cloth cover with silkscreen artwork.
2 texts by the artist + an entr'acte text
ISBN 978-618-83825-2-7
Collector’s Edition
Numbered Limited Edition of 20
With 1 darkroom print by Olivier Pin-Fat (edition 1/5)
Wrapped in the original aluminum offset plates used to print the book
Artist Book
Limited edition of 20 copies
With a fine art print numbered and signed by Joselito Verschaeve
Image size: 17 x 22 cm (Paper dimension: 19,5 x 24,5 cm)
Edition of 20
Printed on Archival Pigment Print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag
Olivier Pin-Fat
“We have never been confronted by such images, which are so direct, so devoid of romanticism and yet so sensitive at the same time. pin-fat presents his work in gigantic albums, which refer more to the format of ‘real’ cinema than to documentary, emphasizing the fascinating aspect of his generous as well as disturbing approach.” – Christian Caujolle (1998)
Olivier Pin-Fat was a member of Galerie VU and Agence VU in Paris from 1997–2008. In 2011 he founded ‘AM projects’. He works solely in analogue.
Featured in
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‘Meat’ by Olivier Pin-Fat is out of print.
Listen to the ‘Meat’ playlist on Spotify.
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✳︎ Shortlisted – The Book Awards (Prix du Livre d’Auteur) 2019 – Le Rencontres d’Arles
LensCulture – Favorite Photobooks of 2018 – Cat Lachowskyj
Photobookstore Magazine – Best Photobooks of 2018: Brad Feuerhelm
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ENGLAND, Lanchester Library
HONG KONG, The Education University of Hong Kong
GREECE, National Library of Greece
GREECE, Void
SPAIN, Library of Museo San Telmo
USA, MoMA Library
USA, Princeton University Library
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Photograph: Olivier Pin-Fat
Text: Olivier Pin-Fat, Brad F.
Design: João Linneu
Edit: Olivier Pin-Fat, Myrto Steirou, João Linneu
Offset Printing: Kostopoulos Printing
Risograph Printing: Dolce Press
Letterpress: Eleni Gatzoflia
Silkscreen Printing: Pantotype
Photocopy Printing: Void
Binding: Void
Language: English
Olivier Pin-Fat © for the photographs and text
Brad Feuerhelm © for the text
Void © for this edition