The photographer Marc Le Mené has discovered his area of predilection in “chambres mentales (mental camera) ” where he deliberately indulges in quirky and unsettling associations. What is a chambre mentale ? It’s both the photographic camera and the cranial cavity capturing and inventing images. The mental camera takes us on an incredible adventure—a farce or a tragedy. The photographer, who goes by a lot of other names, is also known as a manipulator of hybrid objects, an instigator of illegitimate couplings, a maker of mismatches, a baffler and a foiler. He raises precise and delicate issues, always with nonchalance, and with the same concern for precision and methodical perturbation. In his own way, he throws panic into his Pandora’s box. He ventures into regions where true and false, the plausible and the incongruous exchange properties in a dizzying and exuberant juggling act. Here are just some of his games of skill and wit. His contraptions cannot be cracked or solved like a puzzle. The result is baffling.
Emmanuel Guigon
Emmanuel Guigon is Director of the Musée Picasso in Barcelona.
Marc Le Mené, Chambre Mentale
September 9 to November 10, 2017
Galerie Vrais Rêves
6 rue Dumenge
69004 Lyon
France
