Thomas Lemut : Generosity, poetry & contemplation
Thomas Lemut is a special artist. He was born into a family of soldiers and foresters. This double lineage and very early immersed in an artistic universe considerably influenced him. According to him, movement is the best way to approach the cycles of life. If today he creates exceptional furniture, sculpts and photographs, his work, whatever it is, is of an extreme purity and an astonishing precision. Everything is done to result in an incredible visual coherence and a delicate balance.
A passionate and voluble Parisian, a character full of mystery and nostalgia, a bon vivant. Self-taught, he has been in turn sculptor, worker, fashion designer, film producer and artistic director. And although he is convinced that drawing is the basis of everything, he put down his pencils for a while and to the idea make its way.
Curious, inventive, sometimes tortured and above all a perfectionist, he feeds off his deepest concerns, which reveals an underlying sensuality in his works. In his creations, he uses his brain and his heart but does not mix the two, tending towards an ideal of purity. The man and the artist are animated by an eye where poetry rhymes with a certain melancholy.
Currently working on an exhibition to be held in September at the Galerie Mouvements Modernes in Paris, Thomas will give us a glimpse of his personal history and his idea of modernity, that of the 1920s to the 1960s, to which he would like to return while applying it to our contemporary era, offering us at the same time a dive into his sensitive world.
Website : www.thomaslemut.com
News : Exhibition ” I remember the future ” from 15 to 24 Sept 2022. Gallery Mouvements Modernes (www.mouvementsmodernes.com)
Your first photographic trigger?
Thomas Lemut : Old family albums… memories, black and white… another world.
The man of images who inspires you?
Thomas Lemut : Andreï Tarkovski.
The image you would have liked to make ?
Thomas Lemut : ” The execution of Fortino Samano ” photograph by Augustin Casasola 1916.
The one that moved you the most?
Thomas Lemut : The old photographic print a portrait of my young mother… image crumpled by my pockets and torn… now framed on the right of my desk…
And the one that made you angry?
Thomas Lemut : The ones that make me angry?… Any social media image, “meal on a plate”, “bikini at the beach”, “selfie in front of a monument”, etc… because it reflects the emptiness through this false quest for an existence.
A key image in your personal pantheon?
Thomas Lemut : My father’s hand and mine. A very poor quality image taken on his deathbed… just before… I made a print on Canson in inkjet and do not fix the photo, I draw by hand a few outlines on the inkjet print… the idea being that with time and the sun, the photo part disappears and only the pencil will remain.
According to you, what is the necessary quality to be a good photographer?
Thomas Lemut : The same qualities as for any artist… only the “tool” differs… The difference is rarely made on the virtuosity of execution, the quality would rather come from a certain inner revolt… one is “good” when one lets it express itself…
The secret of the perfect image, if it exists?
Thomas Lemut : It doesn’t exist… so the secret is to look for it…
The person you would like to photograph?
Thomas Lemut : My grandfather… who is not in this world since 1940 and that I never knew…
An essential photo book?
Thomas Lemut : More than a book, it would be a DVD ” Les Grands Courants de la Photographie ” by Stan Neumann (ARTE editions). But also, ” The Photobook – volume I II and II ” by Martin Parr…
The camera of your childhood?
Thomas Lemut : An old Rolleix 35… with a magnificent aesthetic.
The one you use today?
Thomas Lemut : My Iphone, a digital Lumix and a Nikon D7200…
but also “no camera at all”… when working on archives or old images…
Your favorite drug ?
Thomas Lemut : Alcohol was replaced by drawing…and then I always had art and nostalgia…
The best way to disconnect for you?
Thomas Lemut : Drawing…
Your greatest quality?
Thomas Lemut : Honestly, I have no idea because I don’t evaluate myself… ever…
A picture to illustrate a new banknote?
Thomas Lemut : Unfortunately, there are no more banknotes… but maybe the peace&love sign of the hippies…
The job you would not have liked to do ?
Thomas Lemut : I am an artist (furniture designer, photographer, sculptor…) and I am serene because at last and finally I feel after all these years “in my place”… but that does not make me in any way someone “special”… no more special than my baker anyway… so the jobs I would not have liked to do are the ones where I would not be in my place… but one can be “in one’s place” in a thousand different ways… the most common one being to start a family…
Your greatest professional extravagance?
Thomas Lemut : The few mini-businesses I did with the dangerous “gangsters” I frequented…
What do you think are the bridges between photography and design?
Thomas Lemut : The link could simply be art… so drawing certainly… I always thought and even noticed that a photographer who drew had a certain additional vision…
The city, the country or the culture you dream of discovering?
Thomas Lemut : The great plains of the American Indians before the “white man” destroyed everything… and Japan, for its relationship to crafts and the hand…
The place you never get tired of?
Thomas Lemut : My bed…
Your biggest regret?
Thomas Lemut : Regrets are sterile unless they are used to avoid repeating the same mistakes… so that’s what I try to do…
On the social networks side, are you rather Instagram, Tik Tok or Snapchat and why?
Thomas Lemut : I make a minimum use of “social networks”, I’m not “anti”, but I think they should be controlled because it seems to me that they destroy more than they should.
Color or B&W?
Thomas Lemut : As a color blind person, B&W of course…
Daylight or artificial light?
Thomas Lemut : Authentic light…
The most photogenic city according to you ?
Thomas Lemut : Paris… not for universal or simply aesthetic reasons… but for intimate reasons because it is my home…
If God existed, would you ask him to pose for you, or would you opt for a selfie with him?
Thomas Lemut : For me God exists and he is everywhere, in every being, every object, every mountain, grain of sand… and therefore in me…
Which image represents for you the current state of the world?
Thomas Lemut : There are too many worlds to accept that one image is representative… it would necessarily be an emotional or intellectual reduction…
What is missing in today’s world?
Thomas Lemut : Love… as always… and since the beginning of humanity…
If you had to start all over again?
Thomas Lemut : I would say to myself “I can’t wait for this to end”… so that I can pass into another dimension, on the other side… well…
About my images by Thomas Lut
This set of 8 images reflects my work as a “photographer”…
A photographer without a camera and who works only on archives. Intimate archives since they are “pictures from the attic”, from the attic of the family house. Most of these images were taken by my great grandfather.
I like the poetry that emerges from them, the imperfections, the softness.
Andrei Tarkovski defined nostalgia… as an idea of what the world was like when beings were rare and every encounter was an adventure…A definition that, if read carefully, could just as well apply to the past but just as much represent a quest for the future…A definition that also and ideally qualifies what I try to show through my photographic work.
Some of these images, and others, will be shown from September 16th to 24th with the gallery Mouvements Modernes in Paris at 28 rue Saint Gilles 75014 during the exhibition « I only remember the future ».
