In the Middle Ages, parchment was a rare and valuable commodity. Copyists transcribed new texts over old manuscripts that had been erased with pumice. The result of this process was called a “palimpsest.”
This practice inspired the series Espaces Palimpsestes by the French artist Patrick Baillet, where fragments of old paintings are installed in abandoned spaces occupied by squatters and covered in graffiti. These places only exist in the artist’s imagination. Inspired by the raw beauty of forsaken buildings and warehouses, he photographs these spaces that have been continually erased and repurposed. Baillet does not consider photography an instantaneous art form, but rather a starting point for a final composition, into which he places figures taken from classical works.
The result is a collection of spaces that are at once real and dreamed, marvelous but disturbing.
Patrick Baillet – Les Espaces Palimpsestes
From December 13th 2012 to January 12th, 2013
Galerie Lazarew Bruxelles
Avenue Louis Lepoutre, 112
1050 Brussel
Belgium
Tuesday – Saturday 2pm – 7pm
