For the past eight years, Francesca Piqueras has been building a portfolio of artistic images of abandoned maritime architecture. Her aesthetically discerning eye has already revealed the tragic fascination and haunting potency of grounded cargo ships, dismantled tankers, oil rigs and rusting military barges.
She now returns to Galerie de l’Europe with a series depicting the remnants of the Phoenix caissons, the huge reinforced concrete structures towed across the Channel by the Allies to build an artificial harbour at Arromanches, crucial to the Normandy landings.
In Piqueras’ images, the remains of the Liberation are metamorphosed into monoliths of raw memory, inescapably worn down by the waves. They stand as the castaways of all our struggles: the battles that men wage among themselves, those that they wage against nature, but also against time and oblivion.
The exhibition offers a meditative look at the great struggles that have to be fought over and over again. The series echoes the timeless myth of the Phoenix or of Sisyphus, but also the big battles that are being played out for us here and now. Private conflicts or shared fights, driven–whatever anyone says–by the same hope that gives the Phoenix new life.
EXHIBITION
Phœnix
Photographies de Francesca Piqueras
Du February 16th to April 2nd, 2016
Opening View on February 18th at 6.30pm
Galerie de l’Europe
55 rue de Seine
75006 Paris
France
Tél. : 01 55 42 94 23
Tuesday – Saturday 10.30am – 1pm / 2.30pm – 7pm
http://www.galerie-europe.com
http://www.francesca-piqueras-photographe.fr
