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3/4/2009

Frederic Lefever

B.P.S.22 Space for Contemporary Creation, Charleroi-Gilly

Curator Pierre-Olivier Rollin

One of the main features of Frédéric Lefever's photographs is his almost exclusive attention for individual and collective constructions. His interest is focused on creations that he personally likes to call 'vernacular'. He says he deliberately avoids picturesque architecture, such as prestige architecture (buildings that are prestigious for their size, function or designer), industrial architecture (factories, waste land or workmen's houses), or urban architecture. Instead, he prefers constructions "without importance, but with a particular, striking mark". His photographs are not architectural typologies but rather 'portraits' of individuals whom we don't see but whose presence is perceived by the details, colours and arrangements, etc.

Lefever has a frontal photographic style, using natural light in the most uniform possible way. At first this striving for 'objectivity' seems to find its origin in his relationship with the School of Düsseldorf. Lefever does not hide the Bechers' influence, although he tempers it with his great sense of subjectivity. We can see this in the choice of his subjects, the discretely revealed details, the soft colours and textures, and the diversity of formats used by the artist. As a result, we can place Frédéric Lefever's work at the crossroads of different approaches, between the rigour of documentary and the possibilities of expressive photography, between rigid photographic protocols and freedom of expression, between the banal and the spectacular, between movement and immobility, between personal stories and history.

The title of the exhibition, 'Nous Autres' (literally meaning 'We, the Others', in linguistics called an exclusive 'we') was a deliberate choice: this popular Belgian French expression synthesises a double movement involving the 'singularization' of our identity and our assimilation with others. In this work, the movement is illustrated with many nuances, subtleties and distant proximity. With this new exhibition, mainly composed of works made during a photography mission in the Walloon area of Belgium, Lefever tries to express what the writer Edouard Glissant calls the 'poetics of relation': "That capacity of imagination that enables us to conceive the intangible globalism of a 'chaos-world', but at the same time allows us to grasp certain detail and particularly to sing about our place, unfathomable and irreversible."

Lefever's works have been purchased by the most prestigious public and private French collections, including the Musée National d'Art Moderne - Centre Pompidou, the Fonds National d'Art Contemporain, the Fonds Municipal d'Art Contemporain de la Ville de Paris, the Musée Français de la Photographie in Bièvres, and by the contemporary art museums of Chicago and Boston.

Sophie Jansseune - Coordination des projets sophie.jansseune@hainaut.be

B.P.S.22 space for contemporary creation
22, boulevard Solvay 6000 Charleroi Belgium
Opening hours: Wednesday - Sunday: 12.00 - 18.00

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