Editor’s Note
Light Architect Magazine is our curated collection of photographic series that are approaching a specific topic we select for the issue. This issue’s topic is “Abstract”. Not necessarily as you would imagine an abstract painting or artwork, but more abstract as the process of adding a distance between the photographed subject and the result of that photography. It is our belief that what occurs within the camera creates a new layer of perception that isn’t strictly related to its physical counterpart.
ab·stract adjective /ab’strakt,ˈ’ab,strakt/ 1. existing in thought or as an idea but not having a physical or concrete existence. “abstract concepts such as love or beauty”
production manager Jérémy Cuenin art director Samuel Delesque opening soon Light Architect Shop
cover photo David-Emmanuel Cohen
© copyright notice: All designs and texts are the property of Light Architect. All featured artworks are subject to copyrights belonging to their respective owners. Reproduction in whole or in parts is stricly prohibited without prior permission.
Abstraction. Abstraction Yeux qui roulent. Yeux ouverts, voyez les minuscules, translucides, particules Qui traversent votre champ de vision. Ça fait exploser tes pensées. Puissant comme le dripping. Pollock est un génie. Projection de couleurs vivantes. Ses œuvres brisent toutes les règles. Il te transmet l’énergie. Libérez votre esprit ! Prenez le temps pour aller vers le sensuel, le sensible de l’indicible. Enfant tu répands quelques couleurs frénétiquement, tu donnes tes violences sur fond blanc. Et tu es un peu plus libre, fort. Et tu te déploies hors du matériel… Philippe Mouhib
Limelight, citylights. I heard the sound of lights close to my chest. You can’t catch your lover ‘s breath. Down in you, down in your madness. You felt things of beauty before. Dig,Dig,Dig. Through your mouth and all senses : Rebels without a cause.
City Skin work in progress • started 1998 Paris/NY/LA
DavidEmmanuel Cohen City skin - we walk on it everyday, and I wanted
to show this aspect of the city under another light, with graphical tendencies going toward abstraction and playing with the scale. You never know whether it is a landscape seen by satellite or material taken through a microscope.
www.cohenvisuals.com
Michel Lagarde Dramagraphies Français:
English:
LAM : Pouvez vous nous commenter votre parcours professionnel en quelques mots?
LAM: Can you comment on your career in a few words?
ML : Depuis tout môme je dessine, je peins. À une époque j’ai commencé à travailler avec une compagnie de théâtre. Je réalisais et dessinais des décors. Je jouais également comme comédien. J’ai fais de la photo quand j ‘étais plus jeune, à l’époque c’était de l’argentique. Et il y a une dizaine d’années j’avais envie de faire un projet qui soit un peu en dehors de mes travaux liés au théâtre en tant que décorateur. Je suis alors parti de l’idée de faire des autoportraits que je mettrais en image.
ML: Since I was a kid, I’ve been drawing and I painting. At some point I started working with a theatre company. I was drawing and producing set designs and also acting. I was doing photography at an earlier age, shooting on film. About ten years ago I wanted to make a project that was a bit different from my usual theater related projects as a set designer. So I started the idea of self-portraits that I would put into pictures. LAM: As you said it’s been 10 years that you started acting in your “dramagraphies.” It is often said that artists make art out of pleasure and sometimes out of necessity. I would like to know what inspired you to get on stage in this way in your self-portraits? ML: The pleasure of doing it but also to have a project that brings together all the things I do in my life: drawing, photography, set design, comedy. And I love telling stories.
LAM : Comme vous l’avez dit ça fait 10 ans que vous vous mettez en scène de vos « dramagraphies ». On dit souvent que les artistes ont recours à une certaine forme artistique par besoin et parfois même par nécessité. J’aimerais savoir ce qui vous a poussé à vous mettre en scène de cette manière dans vos autoportraits ?
LAM: Looking at your photographs, we can see the dream-like, poetic and maybe absurd tales which recall the short films of George Méliès. Did he inspire you when you started?
ML: He and many others. It is a mixture of many things we saw when we were younger, or less young. For example, in ML : Le plaisir de le faire mais surtout avoir un projet qui paintings I like Bosch, Brueghel, the Flemish painters. There rassemble tout ce que j’ai fais dans ma vie à savoir le des- is also a theatrical aspect because I do this a lot. Dark comsin, la photographie, les décors, la comédie. Et j’aime racon- edy films, films from 1950s and 60s. The end of the 19th ter des histoires. century is a mixture of many things, not just Melies - there is a lot of references. LAM : En regardant vos photographies on retrouve le côté onirique, poétique voir saLAM: Your images are a technical bluff. In many of them ugrenu des courts métragit is difficult to see that it is a photomontage. I wonder es de George Méliès. Vous a t’il inspiré à vos débuts ? how important it is for you that the viewer cannot detect whether it is a photomontage ? ML : Lui et beaucoup d’autres. C’est un mélange de beaucoup de choses que l’on a vue plus jeune, moins jeune. Par ML: Of course it is important because I have seen many exemple dans la peinture j’aime beaucoup Bosch, Brueghel, photographers make photomontages and who don’t conles peintres flamand. Il y a aussi une part de théâtre car j’en cern themselves with perspective or other technical probai fais beaucoup. Les films noirs, les films des années 50 lems. At first when you look at my images I want the person - 60. La fin du 19ème c’est vraiment un mélange de tas de to say “ this photo is weird”, not realizing it is a montage. choses, ce n’est pas simplement Méliès il y a énormément Then if you really go into the details maybe you will detect de références. things, but my goal is to deceive people like filmmakers in films where sets are built to fool the viewer that the scene LAM : Vos images sont techniquement bluffanis happening elsewhere. The idea is that the viewer gets te. Sur beaucoup d’entre elles il est difficile de voir qu’il lost at first then start raising questions about the image. s’agit d’un photomontage. J’aimerais savoir si vous What I like is to work with model landscapes because I can mettez un point d’honneur à ce que le spectateur ne give light the scene exactly as I want. This would not be puisse déceler qu’il s’agisse d’un photomontage ? possible if I took places scale. In my “ dramagraphies “ I can put the lighting I want . ML : Bien sur c’est essentiel parce que j’ai vu beaucoup de Thus it can have a direct relationship with the photograph photographes faire des photomontages et pour qui cela ne and the story I want to tell. I try to bring people into a diles dérange pas d’avoir des problèmes de perspectives ou mension they do not know. But I do not want people talking autres. Dans un premier temps quand on regarde l’image about my photos as if they were collages, that’s is not the j’ai envie que la personne se dise « tient elle est bizarre goal. I do not make collages like painters did once upon a cette photo » mais qu’elle ne se rende pas compte que c’est time. un montage. Après si on va vraiment dans le détail peutêtre que l’on va déceler des choses mais mon but c’est de LAM: I do not want to go into the technical details betromper les gens comme le font les réalisateurs dans des cause you explain it well on your website. But since the films où l’on construit des décors pour faire croire au spec- series have been 10 years in the making, have the techtateur qu’il se trouve ailleurs. L’intérêt c’est que le spectaniques changed? teur se perde dans un premier temps puis qu’il se pose des questions sur l’image. Ce que j’apprécie c’est de travailler ML: Yes, of course ! I am not necessarily faster, I’m even avec des maquettes car je peux leurs donner l’éclairage slower than before because I’m trying to go into more deque je désire. Cela ne serait pas possible si je prenais des tails. I’m faster than before for the big picture so it gives endroits grandeur nature. Dans mes « dramagraphies » je me time to work on the details. For example when I want to peux mettre l’éclairage que j’ai envie. incorporate a chair into one of my stories, I’ll photograph it but it may be that the lines of perspective do not work and Ainsi celui-ci peut avoir un rapport direct avec la photogra- reveal the collage. So you have to experiment with many phie et l’histoire que je veux raconter. J’essaye d’emmener photographs of the chair and on top of that you have to les gens dans une dimension qu’ils ne connaissent pas. take both sides of the chair. And then twist the image a lit-
Mais j’ai pas envie que l’on parle de mes photos comme de collages, ce n’est pas le but. Je ne fais pas des collages comme le faisait des peintres à une époque. LAM : Je ne veux pas rentrer dans les détails techniques car vous l’expliquez très bien sur votre site internet. Mais maintenant que cela fait 10 ans que vous travaillez sur cette série la technique a-t-elle évoluée ? ML : Oui bien sur ! Je ne vais pas forcement plus vite je suis même plus long qu’avant parce que j’essaye d’aller plus précisément dans les choses. Je vais plus vite qu’avant dans le gros de l’image donc ça me laisse du temps pour fignoler tous les détails. Par exemple lorsque je veux incorporer une chaise dans une de mes histoires. Je vais la photographier mais il se peut que les lignes de perspectives ne fonctionnent pas alors on voit que la chaise est un collage. Donc il faut faire plusieurs essais de photographies de la chaise et en plus de ça il faut prendre un côté de la chaise puis prendre l’autre côté. Et puis tordre un peu l’image pour que cela corresponde aux lignes de perspectives. C’est aussi pour ça qu’il faut savoir dessiner pour faire ce genre de photographie. LAM : Vous utiliser le medium de la photographie pour créer vos images. Mais vous ne vous considérez pas comme un photographe à part entière?
tle so it that matches the perspectives. This is also why you need to know how to draw for this kind of photography. LAM: You use the medium of photography to create images. But you do not consider yourself a fully-fledged photographer? ML: No I consider myself rather like a bridge between photography and painting. Indeed we now have new tools that allow us to draw with photography in some way. If I want to add a chair, instead of drawing it, I will photograph it and then I’ll integrate it into a scene. I start with a blank sheet of paper like a painter or cartoonist. I don’t record one reality. I build my models and shoot them, and then I add items one by one. This is why I do not consider myself a photographer. I do not record present reality, I invent, like a painter. LAM: How do you explain that everything is in focus in your photographs? ML: I take a lot of models, which are quite small objects. And when you shoot closeups, the depth of field is shallow. So when I photograph a model I take a dozen of different photographs with different points of focus. And then I assemble them, I erase everything blurry and keep only the focused areas.
LAM: Looking through your photos there is not a single ML : Non je me considère plutôt comme un pont entre moment when you get bored. Our eye is always attractla photographie et la peinture. En effet maintenant nous ed by something. I wonder if this is your response to the avons des nouveaux outils qui permettent de dessiner avec minimalist photographs that seem to be in vogue at the de la photographie en quelque sorte. Si je veux représenter moment? une chaise et bien au lieu de la dessiner je vais la photographier et puis je vais l’intégrer dans un décor. Je pars ML: It is not an answer in itself. But I find that sometimes d’une feuille blanche comme un peintre ou un dessinateur. contemporary photography in general is boring. For me, I Je prend pas une réalité. Je construis mes maquettes que try to tell stories with many details so that people can enter je prend en photo puis je rajoute des éléments au fur et à my world. And have fun. I like to have different layers of permesure. C’est pour cela que je ne me considère pas comme ception. I think that in general contemporary art is boring. un photographe. Je prend pas une réalité présente j’invente comme un peintre. LAM: Your series “Dramagraphies” is still ongoing? LAM : Comment expliquez vous que tout soit nette dans vos photographies ? ML : Je prend beaucoup de maquettes donc se sont des objets assez petits. Et qui dit petit dit plan rapproché dit faible profondeur de champ. Donc quand je photographie une maquette je prend une dizaine de photographies différentes avec des plans de netteté différent. Et ensuite je les assemble en effaçant tout ce qui est flou et alors je garde que le net.
ML: Yes, I’ll continue it, until the end I think (laughs). Because it is my way of telling stories and expressing myself. And it is not a series that a conventional photographer can make. A conventional photographer will make a series about for example the sea, and it will be twenty photographs on the same subject. He will make an exhibition of this series and then will switch to a different subject. Contemporary art wants us to work in series. Make a series, then another one not necessarily related to of the first. I do not work like that at all, I do not consider myself a series photographer.
michellagarde.com
LAM : En parcourant vos photos il n’y a pas un seul LAM: Your inspirations seem to be taken from earlier perimoment où l’on s’ennuie. Notre œil est toujours atods. But do you also enjoy following contemporary artists? tiré par quelque chose. J’aimerais savoir si ceci est une réponse de votre part à une photographie d’aujourd’hui parfois un peu plate voir attendue ? LAM: Your inspirations are quite ancient. But do you also enjoy following contemporary artists? ML : Ce n’est pas une réponse en soi. Mais je trouve que la photographie d’auteur moderne d’une manière générale est ML: I very rarely go to exhibitions. I come across interestparfois ennuyeuse. Pour ma part j’essaye de raconter des ing photographers in magazines or on the internet but it histoires avec des détails pour que les gens puissent rentrer is quite rare. I’m not a fan of contemporary art. I am more dans mes images. Et qu’ils s’amusent. Qu’il y ait différents attracted artists from the early 20th century and up until plans de lecture. Je trouve que d’une manière générale l’art the 50s-60s. But it is true that there are times when I come contemporain est ennuyeux. across artists and I think that it is a good work. LAM : Votre série « Dramagraphies » est elle toujours en cours ?
LAM: Can we say that you are a photographic architect? ML: Yes I build photography. It is another way of making photography.
ML : Oui je vais la continuer, je pense jusqu’au bout (rires). Car c’est ma façon à moi de raconter des histoires et de m’exprimer. Et c’est pas une série comme peut le faire un photographe classique. Lui va faire des séries par exemple You can find the book “Dramagraphies” at Chez Higgins sur la mer, alors il va faire une vingtaine de photographies (200€). sur le même sujet. Il va faire une exposition sur cette série et ensuite il va passer à une série différente. L’art contemporain veut que l’on fonctionne en série. Faire une série puis enchainer avec une autre qui n’est pas forcément dans la continuité de la première. Je ne travaille pas du tout comme cela, je ne me considère pas comme un photographe de série. LAM : Vos sources d’inspirations sont assez anciennes finalement. Mais aujourd’hui est ce que vous prenez plaisir à suivre des artistes contemporain ? ML : Je fais très rarement des expositions. Je tombe sur des photographes intéressant dans les magazines ou sur internet mais ça reste assez rare. Je suis pas un fan de l’art contemporain. Je suis plus attiré par les artistes du début du 20ème jusqu’au années 50 - 60. Mais c’est vrai qu’il y a des moments où je tombe sur des artistes et je me dit que la c’est un bon boulot. LAM : Peut on dire que vous êtes un architecte de la photographie ? ML : Oui je construis la photographie. C’est une manière autre de faire de la photographie.
Retrouvez le livre “Dramagraphies”, Chez Higgins (200€)
Jade Finnan jadefinnan
Admires Andrei Tarkovsky and Helmut Newton.
Inpired by Soviet Era and Brutalist architecture mostly.
Born in Lithuania near the seaside where the winds forever meet the waves, nature’s Upcoming exhibitions in colors are mixing as well as Klaipeda (Lithuania) and the shapes are turning into Bochum (Germany). another shapes.
Kristin
Kaleidosc
na Gentvainyte
cope
ClĂŠmenc
reykj www.clemencefloris.com
ce Floris
javik
“Through a strictly graphical approach, the buildings of ReykjvĂk tend to get lost in a set of lines. The colors sometimes clash but often they match.
Levi van Veluw Origin of the Beginning Courtesy of Galerie Ron Mandos
Depicted in this work is a room with 5 persons sitting at a table. These persons are Levi van Veluw and the members of his immediate family: his father, mother, brother and sister. As in certain earlier works, everything, including the whole interior space as well as all family members, is covered with thousands of dark brown wooden blocks. At first sight, everyone seems to be sitting peacefully at the table, the picture of a perfect family unit. Yet this group of figures is positioned in an abstract environment, unrecognisable and therefore far removed from reality. The awkward silence, dark colours and claustrophobic atmosphere suggest uncomfortable underlying tensions and emotions.
The endless repetition of wooden blocks again stands for Van Veluw’s attempts to gain control over his immediate environment, in this case his own position within the family structure.
Origin of the Beginning is a series of installations, photographs and videos in which Levi van Veluw draws from his own childhood memories to thematically and narratively develop his oeuvre of self- portraits. Three rooms are covered with tens of thousands of wooden blocks, balls and wooden slats. Each room is constructed as a life-size installation and is reworked in photographs and videos without the use of digital manipulation. Portrayed in one piece are a desk, a table lamp and a bookcase. The edge of the table is charred and in the video version we see Van Veluw himself, covered from head to toe in wooden blocks, holding a lighter to this piece of furniture. All of these objects including every inch of the floor, walls and ceiling are covered in the same material: 14.000 dark brown wooden blocks. The blocks are produced by the artist from low grade, stained wood and are painstakingly glued, one by one, creating a meticulously crafted and highly aesthetic work.
The works suggest a narrative world behind the portraits. On the one hand these works are a continuation of Van Veluw’s formal approach to self-portraiture, with their preoccupation for materiality, pattern and texture. Yet, at the same time, they are highly personal pieces as well. The repetitive structures seemingly express a ‘horror vacui’ and recall Van Veluw’s youth and his obsessive attempts to gain control over his life by controlling his surroundings. Dimly lit and dark in colour, the overriding tone of these pieces is claustrophobic and sombre, exuding a sense of loneliness.
levivanveluw.nl
Ezio d’Agostino Alphabet
Les Halles 1979-2011
The Forum des Halles symbolized in the 70s, an ambitious architectural vision, the historic heart of Paris. Where there were Baltard pavilions and markets, came the idea of a new futuristic place focusing on trade, pleasure, work, education and art. A monumental concrete complex of several underground floors brutalized the Beaubourg area. Today we have a new vision: the Forum will be replaced by a new complex that will satisfy aesthetic requirements. Thirty two years after its construction, the Forum is now in its decline and its oblivion.
www.eziodagostino.com
www.janmasny.com
burning chrome projections: marc czerwiec make up: elizabeth hsieh styling: irene darko model: kayleigh lush
Jan Masny
Franรงois Gru
umelin-Sohn
www.kadavrexquis.com
Katja Kremen
nic
Katja Kremenix is a photographer with background in media, communications and film who recently decided to become a full time freelance photographer. Her work can be seen at the Nau Gallery in Stockholm and in Millennium images in London. The photographs are a collection of single images and out takes (all analogue), from both long term projects and spontaneous events. It includes personal stories, commissions for magazines, musicians and clothing lines.
www.katjakremenic.com
Nicole Lane You Were Asleep by the Time I Found You Caffenol/Alternate darkroom process
www.snicolelane.com
Matthieu Chèneby United Colors
www.matthieu-cheneby.com
Marzena Skubatz
www.marzenaskubatz.com
LAM: Tell us a little about yourself M: After growing up on a farm in Poland,I spent my time drawing rockets, climbing on trees and watching cartoons before I decided to become a photographer. I received my Diploma in Photography in 2010 and started hiking the mountains of Iceland right after. Today I live and work as a freelance photographer in Germany and Iceland LAM: What inspired you for your series “The weather report I”? M: “The weather report” is a work in progress. It is about a weather station in one of the most remote places on iceland. I spend almost a year at this place and got familiar with the prozess of reporting and reading the measure instruments. It is a book project where I try to work with the rhythm of the reporting and aswell tell something about the people living there and the place itself. The Photography of the series “The weather report I” is more abstract as the measuring tools seem kind of lost in the impressing nature they are surrounded by. So I decided to take pictures at night and use the flash to extract the objects from their surroundings. I also took pictures of things I found at the place itself. LAM: When and why did you start doing photography? M: I went to a graphic design school when I was 18 for three years. There I got the opportunity to try out many creative techniques. By that time I was obsessed with drawing and paintig, but by the time I got my degree I wanted to try something new and photography was something I didn’t know much about, so I decided to study it. LAM: Would you consider your images are fragments of reality, or extracts from dreams/fiction?
M: I would say they are both. My photography was always more about dreams and inner landscapes. But it became more documentary with the time. LAM: Can you tell us a little about exciting projects/upcoming exhibitions? M: At the moment I am working on a project about German women who left Germany in 1949 to live in Iceland. After the Word War II the Icelandic farm association was looking for farm helpers so they announced an advetisement in a German newspaper. Around 330 women took the chance and a lot of them fell in love with Icelanders and stayed there for the rest of their lives. I did a lot of research and interviewing last year. Now I am going to visit five of the women again in about two weeks. I am a little bit nervous about this project because it is very time consuming. Everyone who wants to know more about it or support me, can do this on my blog marzenasprojects.tumblr.com I am also going to continue with the production of “the weather report” and we are working on a few exhibitions. Besides that I am working on a poster print edition which will be available on marzenaskubatz.bigcartel.com soon.  So there’s a lot going on right now. LAM: What is your favorite place to get inspired in Berlin? I usually find my inspiration while I am travelling or from books and exhibitions.
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Light Architect Magazine #4 | Abstract issue | Spring 2014.