Since 2008, Images Vevey has established itself as Switzerland’s leading visual arts biennial. The event sets the benchmark for contemporary lens-based creativity. Previous editions have displayed archival treasures from Martin Parr & The Anonymous Project in D茅j脿 View as well as Marina Abramovi膰 and Ulay’s pioneering performance art piece, The Lovers, The Great Wall Walk (2022). This year’s edition brings 50 creatives from 22 countries together under the theme (Dis)Connected: Between Past and Future. Today, we share with you highlights from the lineup, which includes Kaya & Blank, Lisa Barnard and Paul Graham.
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The Greek term “sympoiesis” refers to the idea of mutual interaction between living beings. For this series, Peter Hauser (b. 1981) photographs ordinary plants and landscapes with an analogue camera. The Swiss artist then edits the images by hand in the darkroom, using a variety of techniques such as colour filtering, multiple exposures, inversion and overlapping of the film.聽From these experiments emerge abstract compositions in which the intensity of the colours adds a supernatural dimension.聽Halfway between beauty and dystopia,聽Sympoiesis聽opens up a space for visitors to reflect upon their relationship with nature.
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Monumental installations stand amongst natural monoliths of the South Korean Landscape. A neon sign declares the word “LOVE,” overseen by mountains in the distance. Elsewhere, the vast ocean becomes the backdrop of a piece that simply states: “The End.” Visual artist Jung Lee’s (b. 1972) photographs contrast sentimental statements with austere locations. Here, expressions of love and loathing dominate the natural environment. Inspired by Robert Indiana’s iconic pop art sculptures and Roland Barthes鈥 1977 essay聽Fragments amoureux (A Lover鈥檚 Discourse: Fragments), Lee explores the state of unanswered desire.
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Since the 1980s, internationally renowned photographer Paul Graham has been revolutionising the art/documentary genre. The image-maker is famous for a series of portraits, Sightless, showing busy commuters mid-blink. It’s a moment many other artists would deem an accidental shot, one of many outtakes before finally achieving the perfect shot. By showing people who are not looking,聽Sightless聽tackles the theme of blindness on a personal level. This topic is personal for Graham, who lost his sight in a childhood accident.聽Twenty years later, the biennial brings the New York crowd to the streets of Vevey.聽
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Artistic duo Kaya and Blank explore the relationship between humanity and nature. Shortly after moving to Los Angeles, the Turkish-German pair discovered an artificial tree camouflaging a cellular network antenna. Intrigued by this artefact, they decided to photograph the many cell towers amid fake vegetation. Two years of photos taken in almost one thousand locations in southwest California culminated in a documentary series, Second Nature (2022). These hyperrealist images highlight the paradox of our 21st century moment, where we seem to prefer fake nature over the ugliness of real infrastructure.聽
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Yolo County, California, is home to a community of 250,000 bats that migrate each summer and nest under a bridge. Here, autonomous cars identify objects using a laser remote sensing system, inspired by bat ultrasound. These vehicles are fitted with a 鈥淵ou Only Look Once鈥 machine learning model, which is trained on 1,000 images extracted from videos of these nocturnal creatures.聽Inspired by this link between AI and animal intelligence, visual artist Lisa Barnard (b. 1967) created this series by working with the California YOLO. It’s a testament to the face that computers will never really be able to imitate nature’s evolution.
Images Vevey | 7-29 September
Words: Diana Bestwish Tetteh
Image Credits:
- 漏 Jung Lee 路 Courtesy of Christophe Guye Galerie.
- 漏 Peter Hauser.
- 漏 Jung Lee 路 Courtesy of Christophe Guye Galerie.
- 漏 Paul Graham / Pace Gallery and Carlier|Gebauer, 2004, 2005 路 Courtesy of Paul Graham and Pace Gallery.
- 漏 Kaya & Blank.
- 漏 Lisa Barnard
