The skeleton of a small bird drifts by the in the undulating river current. The tendons still join the bones together. One wing remains. Poetic and naturalistic, the video Ô gué, ma mie, ô gué (2006) opens the large exhibition of Laurent Millet’s work at the Musée des Beaux-Arts d’Angers. Organized by the museum’s head curator, Christine Besson, two hundred pieces, including three videos and a sculpture, retrace seventeen years in the career of this profoundly original photographer. “Laurent Millet is a somewhat rare figure in that he’s managed to combine photography with all other artistic practices,” says Michel Poivert in the catalogue.
Three different spaces, beautifully designed by Pascal Rodriguez, highlight the importance of series in Laurent Millet’s work. The series aren’t conceived as a variation on a single themes. Rather, they are an attempt to surround the world with a multitude of small worlds, singular adventures, with the help of different time frames and visual means.
The first and largest of the groups shows Millet’s structures in the landscape, often in the Gironde estuary, a ghostly, flowing landscape which his fragile assemblies reinterpret and modify.
The second group gathers Millet’s experiments in his studio, which are closer to drawing, fiction and the exploration of an intimate space. Architecture and interiors are prominent here.
In the third group, black shapes play with transparency and a different interaction with the landscape, a far cry from the precariousness of his first structures.
The exhibition ends with a single polyhedron from the series Somnium (2014), which also appears on the cover of the catalogue. The circle is closed.
Read the full article on the French version of L’Oeil.
EXHIBITION
Laurent Millet : Les enfantillages Pittoresques
Until November 16, 2014
Musée des Beaux-Arts d’Angers
14, rue du Musée
49100 Angers
