When he selected the title “Modern Life”, Hayward Gallery director Ralph Rugoff, artistic director of this year’s Biennale de Lyon, wanted artists to question the essence of our era and the links it retains with the past.
According to Rugoff, “Daniel Naudé’s striking portraits of wild and domestic animals in Africa and India haunt the exhibition like icons of a future where many species will have disappeared”.
Naudé was born in 1984 in Cape Town where he lives and works. His photographic work could be seen as a quest to bring people and animals together for an instant, and features creatures ranging from stray Africani dogs and South African deer to sacred Indian cows. They appear in stunning large-format portraits which could be seen as an attempt to keep a trace of a world that humanity is gradually wiping out.
However, the images are not only of environmental value, testifying to the loss of species; they are also exceptionally well-executed and have high artistic merit. In fact, you would be forgiven for thinking that they were produced in a studio when they are actually the outcome of a patient journey in the field where the different landscapes and the fascinating light provide metallic contrasts.
“Portrait” is definitely the right word to describe the images with their static poses, strong gazes and the hieratic attitude of the models, often shot in profile to better show off their muscles and complex body structure. They actually recall human portraits of official figures such as Georges Osodi’s Nigerian Monarchs – also on show a few metres away at the Biennale .
Daniel Naudé first came across a strange-looking dog in 2006, on the road in South Africa, east of the Cape. “It was a surreal encounter, like a scene from Tolkien [..] I wanted to capture the dogs in their own environment and explore our common history .”
EVENT
13th Biennial of Lyon
« Modern Life »
From September 10th, 2015 to January 3rd, 2016
La Sucrière
47-49 Quai Rambaud
69002 Lyon
France
http://www.lasucriere-lyon.com
http://www.biennaledelyon.com
