(…) is it possible to legitimize the image? Having long taken up the issue of “iconoclastia” and “iconolatry” as a source of inspiration for his work, Babis Kandilaptis begins a new dialogue with the image. Using the signs intrinsic to advertising photography, the artist reworks an idiom all his own. The signs are rearranged according to an entirely different economy. The photographs function in a double register, in which the ambiguity of their references confuses the viewer. Cleared of any reference to the world of consumerism, they nevertheless reveal a confused origin, where the sphere of exchange and pure representation mingle. A parasite that inscribes the artist’s own space in the space of advertising. Advertising not as a neutral terrain, but as a possible site for critical and aesthetic reinvestment. (Eric Amouroux)