Photography Exhibition Fabrique Notre-Dame: Jean-François Jung – In Situ

The Spirits of the Place was the title of a previous exhibition by Jean-François Jung, so one might suspect a new refinement in the current In Situ title…

This term highlights the importance for the photographer of the so-called “genius loci,” often the hidden trigger of his shots. The display of In Situ is organized by themes, which the artist prefers to call Albums, as they are “small concepts” infiltrated by literature or cinema…

For instance, the album The Master of the House, a subtle allusion to Carl Dreyer’s film, appears as an incongruous survey of the implicit external characteristics that certain properties and possessions convey… It is followed by the album Thresholds, where the forms taken by what designates “passage” and the morphologies of its embodied marking are expressed… Also noteworthy are Locus Terribilis, where the photographer feels the terrible as the “sacred” mark of a place, the signature of an otherwise seemingly mundane site; My Fair Attraction, which affirms the image-maker’s fondness for the ephemeral installations of circuses, stalls, and other fairs… Displays, where he revives the living weight of this term which referred to the arrangement of things put forward, advanced into view: such as showcases and transparent stalls where merchants displayed their jewels, as mentioned in an (old) Larousse!

Finally, The Blue of War, where Jean-François Jung searches for the charron blue of our countryside, then traces its various reappearances when this cool color became a “window blue,” a true camouflage for the lights of nocturnal activities that might be spotted from the sky by aviation… The 86 original photographic prints displayed in this In Situ are just the current progression of a larger project by this image man (also a TV director): The Grand Album.

For now, it’s the name of the multicolored gallery on his photographer’s website, which can already be browsed online from a mysterious black table of contents listing 55 albums with unique titles… What a “slate”! The exhibition features images that, rather than being captioned with the possible “reality” of their subjects, are linked to the thematic titles of the famous album’s “pages.” Whether part of it is spread out on the walls or a sum is compressed and visible on a screen, it remains an open book.

Jean-François Jung – In Situ
Fabrique Notre-Dame
31 cours Fernande Peyre, L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue
From July 6 to September 22
https://jeanfrancoisjung.com