Gilles Verneret, director of Bleu du Ciel, took full advantage of his new exhibition space to explore two works whose languages, at first sight quite different, correspond to each other in this visual essay comparing History and history. The title isn’t a reference to Hiroshima, but to globalization and the histories that unfold belonging to those individuals affected by it.
Edith Roux’s cold aesthetic requires that her photographs take place in a kind of fictitious reality, one where characters stand out from the background in the same way that the conflict has destroyed their homes. The bright clothing and rigid postures contrast with the piles of ochre ruins behind them, two distinct realities existing side-by-side. These individuals, deprived of their histories, stand out from the image, implicitly telling their story.
At the other extreme of the social ladder, Jan Stradtmann captures in London the signs and symbols of opulence. His series Belgravia illustrates the homogeneity of wealth: the same columns framing their porches, the same model of luxury car, the same gates separating them from the outside world. In some ways this is a conscious individualism, like the bankers, alone in their gardens of Eden where they momentarily escape from the world of finance that cuts them off from the rest of the world. Globalization is often condemned for encouraging selfishness. These series reveal a more fragile aspect of it, regardless of the social class: an involuntary individualism.
Laurence Cornet
Edith Roux & Jan Stradtmann : Mondialisation mon amour
From November 15th to December 29th, 2012
Le Bleu du Ciel
12, rue des Fantasques
69001 Lyon
France
Tél. : +33 (0)4 72 07 84 31
