The Banker’s Hand D. is composed of a reproduction of a photograph of Nadar and its analysis by a palmist. This must be renewed with each new exhibition, relativizing the uniqueness of the image.​

Here is the premiere of the series, written by Ulrike Albisson and shown in Zürich as part of the Seeing the Capital exhibition at Perla Mode.​

The temporal paradox structured here, that of predicting the future of a dead person, pursues and contradicts by the collision of language one of the ontological foundations of photography de ned by R. Barthes. The assurance of a “it has been” enjoins us to know a hypothetical “it will be.”​

In a second step, the title given by Nadar mentioning the profession of his subject, invites us to a political reading of this hand.​

Benjamin Hugard, born in 1980, in Dijon. He graduated from Villa Arson – Ecole Nationale des Beaux Arts in Nice and from the Haute Ecole d’Art et de Design de Genève.​

His work questions the modes of production, circulation and reception of images; by making, recovering, moving photographs, sentences, objects … in the place of art. The social inclusion of these images in their use of powers and checks and balances is reassessed from critical perspectives as to their effectiveness.​

(…) Sensitive to the “inadequacy of any medium vis-à-vis reality”, Benjamin Hugard never ceases to explore the “ontological limits” of photography by endeavoring on the one hand to expose its status as an artefact. while on the other hand interrogating its broadcasting and reception circuits. Interested in subjects of low spectacular content, the artist stages or represents non-events which he retranslates through a more or less elaborate grammar of the image. By perverting the modes and operating codes of advertising, investigative journalism or “social reporting”, Benjamin Hugard often produces meaningless images, detached from any promotional or informational impact. (…) Erik Verhagen, 2009​

His artistic proposals could be seen at the 54 ° Salon de Montrouge in Paris; at the Delme synagogue during his residency in 2009; at the National Center of Contemporary Art at the Villa Arson in Nice in 2010 or at Perla Mode in Zürich in 2011.