Jacques Pugin
dal 9/2/2015 al 13/3/2015
Segnalato da
9/2/2015
Jacques Pugin
Galerie Esther Woerdehoff, Paris
The Knights of the Devil and Sacred Site. The exhibition features two parts, two views on the same subject, Africa: first a black and white work on the ruins of war and then luminous color photographs of traces from an ancient but lively culture.
The Galerie Esther Woerdehoff is pleased to present two series by photographer Jacques
Pugin: The Knights of the Devil and Sacred Site. The exhibition features two parts, two
views on the same subject, Africa: first a black and white work on the ruins of war and
then luminous color photographs of traces from an ancient but lively culture.
The Knights of the Devil
How does one photograph war? Certainly not by repeating pictures of corpses, answers
the author who decided to re-appropriate images and subject satellite views of burnt
villages in Darfur –with at least 300,000 dead between 2003 and 2006– to another
treatment, posing the question in a radical fashion. Freed of their colours and converted
into black and white negative, the Google Earth captures become graphics. We will not
find information, but we will, indisputably, have the form. (...)The information could not
be derived from the actual image if it were produced in the photographic tradition or by
the sophistication of recent technologies. Satellites –which sweep everything, monitor
everything– supply us with shapes. Shapes to be deciphered. In this case, denoting
tragedy.
Christian Caujolle, published on The Eye of Photography
Sacred Site
As a counterpoint to the tragedy in Darfur, Galerie Esther Woerdehoff also exhibits
another series: Sacred Site. The series refers to the name that Australian aborigines
give to their holy places by surrounding them with enclosures to protect them. The
artist travels around the world to photograph theses places, browsing deserted and
depopulated areas and natural sites. He photographs traces that indicate the presence
of man in the landscape. His photographs suggest a reflection on time, space and the
complex relationship between mankind and nature. This series includes many enclosures,
buildings, or traces of nomadic dwellings characterized by their circular shape: Jacques
Pugin photographs these places like sculptures made with the surrounding elements,
by men.
Image: Jacques Pugin, #03, from the series The Knights of the Devil, 2008-2013
Ultrachrome pigment print on Hahnemuhle paper, 36,5 x 65,5 cm, edition of 11
Press Contact:
Sabine Guédamour by email at sabine@ewgalerie.com
Opening: 10 February 2015
Galerie Esther Woerdehoff
36 rue Falguière
75015 Paris