The work of the Swiss photographer Béatrice Helg occupies a special place in the tradition of staged photography that first saw the light of day in the 1980s. Indeed, far from hyper-realistic or narrative works, or reconstructions of scenes from daily life, her works show us abstract forms, luminous worlds.
The icon, in the orthodox tradition, is a window open to the invisible. And it’s this image that comes to mind when we contemplate the spaces constructed by Béatrice Helg, which vibrate with an unworldly silence. Since her earliest works, the artist has known how to combine the material and theatricality, or reality and vision. Influenced by the Russian avant-garde and constructivism, passionate about architecture, theatre and opera, she stages her photographs, creates monumental spaces where sculpture, painting, the environment and, above all, light seem to intermingle.
More than anything else, here the light is the material without which the work wouldn’t exist. It is the medium by which everything can be revealed. These “pictures”, haunted by the contradiction between light and darkness, open onto the infinite, a quest for the absolute or a search for a limitless inner mystery.
Béatrice Helg – Photo & contemporary, Stand C6
A Paris Photo 2016
Du 10 au 13 novembre 2016
Grand Palais
Paris, France
