ARTICLE
Max Pinckers (b. 1988)
A Belgian art and documentary photographer, Max Pinckers is known for using his practice to explore the blurred lines between reality and fiction, trading documentation and truthfulness in favour of deeper, more subliminal realities.
Born in Brussels, Pinckers received his graduate degree in photography from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts (KASK), Ghent, in 2012. He was also a member of Magnum Photos between 2015 and 2017. Till date, Pinckers has self-published four books, two of which cover his travels in India.
In this book, as with The Fourth Wall, it is sometimes difficult to determine which of the images are staged and why, especially since the influence of cinema also plays a crucial role in romanticising the eloping couple. Pinckers leans into this trope, photographing dramatic and culturally recognisable scenes, such as a woman’s dress on fire, a spilled glass of water next to a phone or a man looking back from a moving train. A major presence in this series is the Love Commandos — a New Delhi-based group of four to five men who provide protection and shelter to couples living in fear of their families. The series, despite its playful adoption of cinematic tropes, highlights the very real dangers faced by runaway couples, which stands in contrast with the Bollywood-inspired idea of defiant love.
The Fourth Wall won The City of Levallois Photography Award in 2013. The book was also shortlisted for the Paris Photo-Aperture Foundation First PhotoBook Award and nominated for Best Photobook of the Year at the sixth International Fotobookfestival in Kassel. Pinckers also won the Photographic Museum of Humanity competition in 2014 for Will They Sing Like Raindrops or Leave Me Thirsty. Photographs from his travels in India have been part of multiple exhibitions, most notably Will They Sing Like Raindrops at the Centrale for Contemporary Art, Brussels (2015) and Picture This: Contemporary Photography and India at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (2016).
At the time of writing, Pinckers is pursuing a doctoral degree in photography from KASK.
Bibliography
Bainbridge, Simon. 2013. “Ones To Watch: Max Pinckers.” British Journal of Photography. January. http://www.maxpinckers.be/texts/ones-to-watch/.
Gonçalves, Sara. 2016. “Max Pinckers: A New Approach To Documentary Photography.” Culture Trip. March 22. https://theculturetrip.com/europe/belgium/articles/max-pinckers-a-new-approach-to-documentary-photography/.
O’Hagan, Sean. 2014. “India's Love Commandos – and the Runaway Couples They Protect.” The Guardian. October 24. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/oct/24/bollywood-runaway-couples-love-commandos-max-pinckers-photobook.
Padley, Gemma. 2014. “Max Pinckers Wins Photographic Museum of Humanity 2014 Grant.” 1854 Photography. April 29. https://www.1854.photography/2014/04/max-pinckers-wins-photographic-museum-of-humanity-2014-grant/.
“Picture This: Contemporary Photography and India.” Philadelphia Museum of Art. https://www.philamuseum.org/exhibitions/836.html.