After Midnight series _Munich 2014

After Midnight series_Munich 2014

T. : +352 621738495 - e.mail. : [email protected]

Reconstruction_140925_003, 2014lambda print, mounted on dibond, diasec finish, aluminium back framed, 160x160. Edition 1 + 1 APlambda print, mounted on dibond, diasec finish, aluminium back framed, 120x120. Edition 3 + 1 APlambda print, mounted on dibond, diasec finish, aluminium back framed, 90x90. Edition 5 + 1 AP

After Midnight series_Luxembourg 2004-2012

Paul di Felice

After Midnight by Bruno Baltzer

The generic title, «After Midnight», of the colour photographic series by Bruno Baltzer resonates like a ‘60 bebop jazz piece. Begun in 2004, the photos were in fact taken after midnight during four instalments of the traditional Luxembourgish fun fair, Schouberfoer.

Instead of an expected dark atmosphere with a blues rhythm in an enigmatic night, the viewer discovers structured and serial images which are far from improvised. The images are systematically constructed by merging two or more photos and assembled so as to gently blur their photographic frontality. They come across as a series reminiscent of the typology of conceptual photographs while remaining rooted in a post-modern spirit.

Even if the monotonous repetition of the device is contrasted by the rich formal beauty and colour that emerges from each object, these photographs reveal an intentional dichotomy between presence and absence, between abundance and solitude.

In this way, the rationality apparent in the process of reconstruction and classification (and that furthermore forms the sub-title of the series), fades into the background behind these many coloured assemblages. They bear witness, despite their systemisation, to the animated life of the site.

In this photography, simultaneously empty and full, the proliferation of graphic signs and the absence of people combine to disconnect of photographed object from the subject of the fun fair. It expresses a dialectic between pre-recorded traces and constructed indexes.

The silence of the uninhabited night fills the photographic image with elements that a day-time visit to the fair can only hint at. Rather than retracing the atmosphere of a fair by focusing on its crowds and its bustle, the artist seeks a formal confrontation, a metonymy.

Seen under this angle, the theme of the fair in this series could be seen as a pretext for the artist to «re-construct» a place which projects countless personal and public images that photography can reveal only as part of a process which is both cognitive and sensitive.

Photography, more than a simple mechanical operation, becomes in this case an intriguing thought, a questioning of the representation of reality as part of an artistic process.

It is true that Bruno Baltzer embarks on, to use the words of Philippe Dubois, a true «iconic action» in elaborating this series which, by its degree of abstraction, leaves large margins for interpretation.

Reconstruction_0609003lambda print, mounted on dibond, diasec finish, 120x120cm, edition1/3acquisition MUDAM, Musée d’Art Moderne Grand Duc Jean; Luxembourg, 2010

Reconstruction_0508212lambda print, mounted on dibond, diasec finish, 120x120cm, edition1/3acquisition MUDAM, Musée d’Art Moderne Grand Duc Jean; Luxembourg, 2010

Reconstruction_0409865lambda print, mounted on dibond, diasec finish, 120x120cm, edition 2/3private collection

Reconstruction_0409865lambda print, mounted on dibond, diasec finish, 160x294cm, edition 1/1private collection

Reconstruction_0509038lambda print, mounted on dibond, diasec finish, 90 x 120cm, edition 3+1APlambda print, mounted on dibond, diasec finish, 37,5 x 50cm, edition 5+1AP

Reconstruction_0509054lambda print, mounted on dibond, diasec finish, 90 x 120cm, edition 3+1APlambda print, mounted on dibond, diasec finish, 37,5 x 50cm, edition 5+1AP

BRAVE NEW WORLDFrom the perspective of MUDAM collection01.30 - 05.23.2010

What do artists tell us about the world we live in? What image do they show us of our bodies, our land, our towns, our dreams and fears? The exhibition Brave New World offers an open and surprising reading of the world through a hundred artworks by more than ninety artists from the point of view of the Mudam collection.

Brave New World is an exhibition composed exclusively of artworks from the Mudam collection. It occupies the whole museum exhibition space which has been partially altered for the occasion. Mudam’s collection of contem-porary art bears the fingerprints of Bernard Ceysson and Marie-Claude Beaud, the directors who have been involved in its constitution since the first acquisitions in 1996. It bears witness to a particular interest in artworks anchored in the contemporary world regardless of the techniques employed (painting, sculpture, photo, installa-tion, video, etc). The exhibition also includes specially commissioned furniture by artists and designers and extends outside the museum with an installation in the ditches in the park.

The exhibition title refers to the famous science-fiction book by Aldous Huxley published in 1932. It allows Enrico Lunghi (the curator of the exhibition and director of Mudam) to offer visitors fragmentary and open stories that pro-vide various possible “readings” of the world around us, through the artworks in the collection. Thus the exhibition is layed out in four parts, with a prologue and an epilogue, each introduced by a quotation from the book by Aldous Huxley. The section called “our faces” notably thematizes the way in which artists see and treat “human nature”, while the section “our artifices” deals with certain visions of our constructed environments. “Our territories” brings together artworks treating this theme in the most abstract and imaginary way, whereas “our inner life” evokes fan-tasies and fears of which art is often the depositary.

Artists :Marina Abramovic, Haluk Akakce, Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Sylvie Auvray, Stephan Balkenhol, Bruno Baltzer, Vincent Beau-rin, Bernd & Hilla Becher, Valérie Belin, Pierre Bismuth, Sylvie Blocher, Andrea Blum, Erik Boulatov, Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec, Miguel Branco, Victor Burgin, Gerard Byrne, Pedro Cabrita Reis, Masaya Chiba, Hannah Col-lins, Gil Heitor Cortesão, Stéphane Couturier, Tony Cragg, Alexandra Croitoru, Rosson Crow, Richard Deacon, Alain Declercq, Wim Delvoye, Damien Deroubaix, David Dubois, Jan Fabre, Roland Fischer, Günther Förg, Katrin Freisager, Franz Gertsch, Gilbert & George, Tina Gillen, Nan Goldin, Konstantin Grcic & Nitzan Cohen, Andreas Gursky, Steven C. Harvey, Federico Herrero, Edgar Honetschläger, Sven Johne, Jesper Just, Izima Kaoru, William Kentridge, Kimsooja, Shiro Kuramata, Claude Lévêque, Edward Lipski, Richard Long, Chad McCail, Jennifer & Kevin McCoy, Steve McQueen, Maurizio Nannucci, Manuel Ocampo, Miguel Palma, Grayson Perry, Raymond Pettibon, Eric Poitevin, Nikolay Polissky, Antoine Prum, Tobias Putrih, Thomas Ruff, Cindy Sherman, Katharina Sieverding, Nedko Solakov, Eve Sonneman, Thomas Struth, Martin Szekely, Bert Theis, Wolfgang Tillmans, Tatiana Trouvé, Janaina Tschäpe, Su-Mei Tse, Jean-Luc Vilmouth, Kara Walker, Bill Woodrow, David Zink Yi

Curator: Enrico Lunghi

MUDAM, Luxembourg, BRAVE NEW WORLD, 30/01/2010 - 24/05/2010; MUDAM COLLECTION 26/05/2010 - 30/10/2010

MNHA, Luxembourg, 2012-2013

After Midnight series _Munich 2014

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