Working at the frontier of artistic and documentary photography, Mathieu Bernard-Reymond is interested in notions of production and transformation. His series Transform is made of several parts. A first series, Transform : Hyper, explored supermarket aisles where common consumer products are alined and classified by typology. The second series, Transform : Power, presented here, examines the process of electric energy production. Beginning in 2015, this project (a collaboration with La Chambre in Strasbourg and the Musée EDF Electropolis) was made in nuclear and hydraulic centers. Fascinated by the gigantism and the degree of engineering necessary to develop this type of infrastructure, Bernard-Reymond specifically concentrated on the constructed space and the machines that he shows through fragments. He documents each aspect of these sites, closed to the public. Architecture of piping and cable systems, technical instruments with choices of color and material, these elements, all highly functional, captivate the artist.
The notion of production not only corresponds to the subject, but also to the method of image “fabrication”. In fact, certain photographs are manipulated by an algorithm, a process that makes them lose their documentary appearance and renders them more and more abstract. The straight lines curve, color planes appear, scale is altered. Certain details of the original image are enlarged while principal lines of the composition are obliterated by the computerized tool. Bernard-Reymond does keep, however, a control section, since the images made by the program are then reworked by the artist to attain an almost pictorial quality. The interaction between the recording of reality with the camera and the interpretation of the image through the software meet in the installation conceived by the artist, who juxtaposes different images via collage. Bernard-Reymond gives us a hybrid view of the world, shaking the habitual isolation between documentary testimony and artistic approach.
Nathalie Herschdorfer
Nathalie Herschdorfer is a writer, photography historian, and director of the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Le Locle, Switzerland.
Mathieu Bernard-Reymond, Transform
From February 19 through May 28, 2017
MBAL Musée des beaux-arts Le Locle
Rue Marie-Anne-Calame 6
2400 Le Locle
Switzerland
