"I wrote somewhere that in 1995, I had abandoned my experiments with digital photomontages (Mythologies and Metamorphoses of Ovid) with the feeling that, despite their interest, they were leading to a dead end: too much control, not enough unpredictability. However, in a corner of my mind, I still had the desire to take up the challenge once again: to produce, despite the 'omnipotence' of Photoshop—or precisely thanks to this 'omnipotence'—images that were both unpredictable, composed according to my criteria, and impossible to replicate (because I would never find myself in the same state of mind as when I had produced them).
Hélène Busnel (the same person who had served as a model for Metamorphoses) had a project for a 'four-handed work.' She was interested (like me) in sculpture. Like me, she had seen reports on the Carrara quarries and the sculpture workshops in Pietrasanta, and she wanted to visit them. I proposed to her to create images together where we would mix reality and imagination, spontaneity and fabrication, found objects and designed objects. With sculpture that would not be sculpture, events that would not be events, photography that would not be photography.
The shooting took place over several stages: the backgrounds in April, in Italy, the nudes in May, in my studio in the Paris region, and then in June, at Hélène's place in Picardy. These shifts contributed to the unpredictability: when photographing the backgrounds, I did not know (or almost didn't know) where I would insert the 'sculptures.' When photographing the nudes, I was unaware (or almost unaware) of how I would turn them into marble.
I'm not entirely sure what place and significance to attribute to this work. But neither Hélène nor I regret the time and effort we invested in it."
- Frank Horvat