La Chambre begins the year by presenting the work of Franco-German artist Jürgen Nefzger. After an exhibition on the post-Fukushima, another on Chinese political propaganda of the 1960s, this is part of the desire to show photography in connection with social issues.
The artist travels through Europe and France, his adopted country, even in country side and small anonymous places . Industrial zones, disused edges of cities, real estate projects stopped by the economic crisis are for him areas of investigation of choice. In parallel, breathtaking natural panoramas remind us of the smallness of man in his environment.
Jürgen Nefzger has been developing since the beginning of the 90s a documentary style that gives pride of place to composition and color, evoking sometimes classical painting. Landscape is his main subject, and particularly its evolution intimately linked to that of human society. The impact of modernity, of industrialization, are examined as symptoms indicative of a race for progress and consumerism.
Shown in relation to impassive nature, our society is put in perspective and questioned by games of paradoxical juxtapositions and odes to the beauty of nature. The people are integral part of these sets, sometimes indifferent, sometimes militant.
The two series exhibited in La Chambre are ten years apart and answer each other on the nuclear theme. Fluffy Clouds shows the seemingly peaceful cohabitation between daily human activities and power stations. The characteristic chimneys signal in the landscape an era of comfort, technology, but are also intrusive and vaguely threatening.
Bure, a new series made in Lorraine on a site planned for landfill of nuclear waste, refers to the consequences of this industry, we do not know for the moment how to eliminate the dangerous residues. Among the majestic trees, appear traces of the militant struggle that was organized under form of ZAD (area to defend).
Jürgen Nefzger
January 12 – February 24, 2019
La Chambre
4 place d’Austerlitz
67000 Strasbourg
