The Musée Nicéphore Niépce presents Eveningside, an exhibition by Gregory Crewdson.
If photography seems obvious to us, composed of a succession of signs that “speak” to us, even though it’s always easier to produce snapshots, Gregory Crewdson [born in 1962 in Brooklyn] floods us with clues to better lose us, trap us, force us to look and question ourselves.
Concluding a trilogy that began with Cathedral of Pines (2014) and continued with An Eclipse of Moths (2018-2019), Eveningside (2021-2022) completes a cycle focused on the places where Gregory Crewdson grew up, places in which he knows every nook and cranny. As in his previous works, Crewdson deploys significant technical resources in these three series, those usually used for making movies. With a team of nearly twenty people, the photographer suggests scenarios, develops skillfully orchestrated scenes, uses numerous special effects [light, smoke, etc.] to reinforce the atmospheres he wishes to create. The long post-production phase completes the process to give his series their unique atmosphere, their coherence, their implacable character. Invariably, Crewdson’s photographs question and do not offer themselves to the viewer: “I want the question to always remain open. Without an answer. In a way, this is the case for any photograph: no photo ever fully reveals its meaning.” 1
Time seems suspended, a freeze-frame where Crewdson condenses all the elements of a film into a single photograph: “What I want is for the viewer to be immersed in a universe, that of the image, as in a good film or any work of art.” 2 From then on, Crewdson places the viewer in the position of the photographer, even the voyeur: the format, the details, the symbols that echo one another from one photograph to another, from one series to another, invite observation, immersion, and the search for meaning while standing back.
For this exhibition, the Nicéphore Niépce Museum has chosen to show the Eveningside series alongside a photograph from each series that precedes it in the trilogy, thus reflecting the coherence of the corpus and the continuity in Crewdson’s works between 2014 and 2022.
1.Interview of Gregory Crewdson by Cate Blanchett, in Alone in the Street, Éditions Textuel, Paris, 2021
2. Op. cit.
Exhibition organized in partnership with the Galerie Templon.
Curated by: Sylvain Besson
Gregory Crewdson : Eveningside
Until May 18, 2025
Musée Nicéphore Niépce
28 quai des messageries
71100 Chalon-sur-Saône
03 85 48 41 98
www.museeniepce.com
www.open-museeniepce.com
www.archivesniepce.com
