L’Asie des Tartares, Rencontre avec Siyah Qalem, Maître du Calame noir

There is a mysterious artist whose identity is still not sure, who was probably active in the XVth century in the Tartar world, between Turkestan, China, Russia and Afghanistan, over by Tabriz or Herat. This Muhammad of the Black Pen, who surprised all of Europe during an exhibition in Munich in 1910, used to paint poor people, the ascetics, the wanderers. Five hundred years later, a couple of vagabond photographers, in love with central Asia, Roland and Sabrina Michaud, roamed all of the steppes in search of the archetypes painted by the Master. The result is surprising: same physiognomies, same look, same attitudes, same habits (bonnets made of astrakhan) and, same activities (horse dressage, scenes of blacksmiths and markets). Just like a game of mirrors between photographs of today and paintings of yesterday, nothing seems to have changed: one could conclude that globalization never took place…

• L’Asie des Tartares, Rencontre avec Siyah Qalem, Maître du Calame noir, photographs by Roland and Sabrina Michaud, Gallimard, 2011, 160 p., 39 €