Programmed by the City of Grenoble as part of Grenoble, European Green Capital 2022, the exhibition Plural Landscapes by Nicolas Coutable can be seen at La Plateforme until February 25, 2023.
Plural Landscapes
Observing and understanding the territories in which we live is a first step in addressing the current ecological crisis. It is a matter of showing humility by placing ourselves on an equal footing with the rest of the living world. For centuries, however, our relationship with nature has often been reduced to a one-sided power struggle. Unlike other living species, we mark our planet with visible and invisible imprints, sometimes irreversible. For his first solo exhibition, Nicolas Coutable presents a singular view of multiple territories around the world. His photographs reflect their plurality and highlight the transformations undertaken by Man on them.
Landscape, masculine noun: spatial expanse, natural or transformed by man, which presents a certain visual or functional identity: forest, urban, industrial landscape. Through his shots, the photographer creates the landscape. He limits and frames a spatial extent through visual and aesthetic criteria. He proposes a look, a subjective and anthropocentric vision of a given space. As a creator of landscapes, the photographer thus has a share of responsibility in the considerations that we have of our territories. Nicolas Coutable also makes landscape. For all that, his framing wants to surprise, inform and give an account of certain realities. In his “Plural Landscapes”, Nicolas reveals and questions the behaviors that we maintain with our environment. He tries to capture our impact in order to make us react. This exhibition participates in a collective awareness of our power to act, it is the sum of individual wills and behaviors that will allow us to catch up with the current trajectory.
Nicolas Coutable
Nicolas Coutable began his artistic career in 2010, when he became familiar with the exploration of industrial wastelands, seeing in these wastes “traces”, real stigmas left in our landscapes. In 2015 he undertook a series of mobile residencies in South America, alongside the visual artist Laurent Chiffoleau. After exhibitions in Dunkirk, Paris, Budapest and Bordeaux, Nicolas Coutable resides in the former Fagor factories in Lyon where he is developing a new part of his work dedicated to wastelands. After a remarkable participation in the group exhibition Regards sur nos Restes at the Halles du Faubourg (Lyon, January and February 2020), the photographer will collaborate in 2022 with the city of Grenoble and Maison Gutenberg for the programming of his personal exhibition Paysages pluriels.
Practical information
Opening and press conference on December 15, at 6:30 pm – Free
On view until February 25, 2023.
La Plateforme, former museum of painting
9 Place de Verdun,
38000 Grenoble
Curator: Romain Weber, Artistic Director of Maison Gutenberg
Information
La Plateforme
9 Place de Verdun, Grenoble 38000, France
December 15, 2022 to February 25, 2023
