Galleri Image Aarhus DK - 1999

La Métamorphose de la lumière

 

Galleri Image, Aarhus, DK 1999

 

Last fall, the french artist Martine Mougin exhibited in Denmark for the first time, at Galleri Image in arhus. While visiting Denmark in spring 1999, she became fascinated by the Nordic light, triggering the idea to photograph natural light in dialogue with artificial or manmade light.

 

The exhibition consisted of two installation, la Lumière Urbaine (City Light) and La lumière Naturelle etRecrée (Natural and Recreate Light). The former was installed in the tap room of the tower at the public baths in Arhus. The room was hung alternating Mougin's pictures of the ciy lights with the city's own light shining in the windows. This generated interplay between the photographs of the sky over Arhus and the views by the windows. In one case, the viewer's gaze punched out reality into fixed views within the window frames, while the other views had been framed by Mougin, the photographer.

To speak of the photographic instant is banal. Nevertheless, in the blink of an eye you recognize Mougin's photographs of manmade light, such as streetlights, seen against the natural lighting of the sky. Elements of personal walks through cultivated landscapes are recalled, such as when, wrapped up in your own thoughts, glance at the sky. Mougin,s images make you suddenly aware of such private moments.

 

A somewhat similar effect occurs in her pictures of windmills. Mougin sees the mills as light givers, inasmuch as they generate energy to produce light. But the mills are more than that. Mougin represents the mills as sculptures in a landscape or as shadows across a landscape. The mills are not invisible producers of energy : as they turn, their shadows fall on their surroundings. One photograph show the diffuse shadow of a windmill's arms on drawn blinds seen from within. The shadow, and the subject, become a private matter- a recurring theme in the exhibition. The personal within the general. Streetights, moonlight and windmills are all everyday phenomena, accesssible to all, whereas our experience of them is individual and private. Mougin's work enables us to share such experiences.

 

Kerstin Vedel  

"Art Crach "Katalog 1999







 



 

 

 




Sources : F Soulages original ctalogue.jpg revue ART CRASH 1.jpg revue ART CRASH 2.jpg katalog.doc