Let’s start with the grandfather. Trained at the Aéro-Club de France, Alfred Comte (1895–1965) was an aviation pioneer in Switzerland, co-founding the airline company Swissair. He was also an amateur of aerial photography. Later in life, he loved showing his images to his grandson Michel. For example, the photos he took in the summer of 1914 over the Alps: they showed massive glaciers, still intact.
In 2014, Michel Comte himself flew over the alpine region in summertime. The areas that were white in his grandfather’s photos were now almost black.
Since the 1970s, Michel Comte has earned a reputation as a fashion photographer, contributing to Vogue and Vanity Fair, from advertising campaigns for prestigious brands to celebrity portraits. Born in 1954 in Zurich, Michel Comte has also collaborated with the Red Cross and runs his own humanitarian foundation. He has always been keenly aware of the issue of natural resource management, in particular water.
In 1986, Michel Comte spent a few months in Tibet. One day, he met a group of Chinese in a monastery. “We struck a conversation,” the photographer said in a phone conversation from Zurich, where he moved back after a long stay in the United States. “They were scientists. They told me that China wasn’t interested in Tibet for political or religious reasons, but because the region was the country’s major source of water. And that this source would one day, in 20 or 25 years, be threatened by a climatic phenomenon: the melting of glaciers.”
From that moment on, in parallel to his work in fashion and advertising, Michel Comte has been documenting the state of the world’s ice giants. From the Alps, the Himalayas, to British Columbia, the Andes, and Spitsbergen. Over thirty years of observation, he has been able to record their retreat, at first slow, then more rapid, now outright alarming.
Michel Comte has now practically given up fashion and celebrity photography. He has turned toward contemporary art. He is currently exhibiting his images of glaciers at the Maxxi Museum in Rome, and is slated to participate in the Milan Triennale from November 28th. He does not belong to the tradition of landscape or documentary photography, but alternates wide shots and close-ups, details and retouches, black-and-white and color, sometimes large abstractions. His approach is emotional, aesthetic, and as unpredictable as the consequences of climate change.
The exhibition includes video mapping, sculpture, sound, and installations, such as the miniature mountains of ice that melt on display. The exhibition aims solely at raising awareness, through art, about the ever more worrisome threat. The title, Light, evokes the prime resource of photography. “And because I remain an optimist,” concludes Michel Comte.
Luc Debraine
Luc Debraine is a culture and society journalist. He lives and works in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Michel Comte, Light
November 14 to December 10, 2017
MAXXI, Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo
Via Guido Reni 4A
00196 Rome
The book Michel Comte: Light is published by Steidl
€98
