Joachim Lapôtre, Nature Morte, Photography

We are pleased to invite you to the opening of the exhibition Nature Morte of Joachim Lapôtre.

Opening: 21 May 2010, 19 - 22h, the event's host is Joachim Lapôtre
Exhibition: 24 May - 1 June, 2010

There is nothing 'still' about Lapôtre's photographs: they change, evolve daily, reflecting our own changes, those of our times as well as our contrasts and contradictions. Consumerism, vanity, moral values, aesthetic principles, Lapôtre leads everything towards an epitomic destruction, a slow and splendid death, before he gives a razor-sharp rebirth to each ensemble. At age 30, with the soon to-be-cult triptych «Offerings», Joachim Lapôtre is emerging as one of the most promising talents around.
~Mary-Noelle Dana

The advertising imagery never ceases to imitate immortality with pictures of eternal youth, the light of life by showing gloss and luxury, simplicity by using the myth of abundance and accumulation. The advertised object is a sign of wealth you can buy it, but this does not yet allow the appropriation. To become ours the object must be accompanied by feelings, it must be a sign of emotional experience. Joachim Lapôtre presents inhabited still lifes. He invites us to dwell on these everyday objects that became routine for our perception. It's about unlearning and regaining that astonishment which gives the objects their preciousness and living. All of them are associated with emotional moments of everyday life. Yet simple objects, they adopt the status of relics. The still life becomes a tomb for everyday life, accompanied by the property and characteristics of the deceased. The ghosts of memories that we share with our dear ones can live on these offerings presented on the altar. This is not about nostalgia, but a ritual which turns the daily, fleeting, transitory into something sacred, perhaps it makes the victory over death and the ravages of time possible.
~Nicolas Bernhardt