erwan morere - Galerie Les Filles du Calvaire

PRESS KIT
ERWAN MORERE
Wildside
Exhibition: 04.12 - 22.12.13
and then: 03.01 - 11.01.14
Untitled, from the A Walk on the wild side series,
2012
17, rue des Filles-du-Calvaire 75003 Paris // 01 42 74 47 05 // [email protected]
ERWAN MORERE
Opening: 04.12 - 6pm to 9pm
Erwan Morère’s gaze
Erwan Morère favours very dense black and whites and a relative
opacity that obstructs the eye, contradicting what is usually taught to
young contemporary photographers. He even sometimes plays with
blurry images that one can barely read. Intensely grained, the photographs’ contrasts are pushed to their very limits. Erwan Morère
doesn’t seem to edit his images, beyond its framing choices, the printing process –on a baryta paper that highlights their contrasts or on a
mat paper saturating the blacks–. Everything depends on the shooting,
in the sense that it is reality itself and the context he works in that cast
doubts on our capability of analysing the peculiar emotions we feel.
In some images, one has difficulties understanding if it is a drawing or
a parcel of reality, in so far as the print’s quality is always confusing.
Their surfaces are altered as if the extreme climates of the countries he
roamed had damaged the films. Strömholm or Petersen seem to have
influences his photographic style based on similar contrasted black
and whites, dense grain and always taking the opposite view to usual
composition lines.
This kind of very personal photographic writing is not recent in ErwanMorère’s work: it was already the case in his shots of Mongolia or Iceland, for example, in images that are never related to documentary
photography, eventhough he travels a lot. He brings back movies from
several countries but they rarely talk about the places he visited and
the people he met. Settings and situations sit on the verge of an imaginary world. His frontal shots of mountains or landscapes with flat
tints are subtly composed in layers that create a visual effect and erase
perspective as well as our cognitive perception of the sky, the ground
or the sea.
Untitled, from the Seydisfjördur series, Iceland, 2009
Jean-Luc Amand Fournier describes his work:
The vastness of those semi-deserted territories,
mainly in the north in this series, the far north –
places where, far to the east, it’s the west, and
vice-versa: Mongolia, Iceland, Canada – places
he crossed, over and over again, in trains or planes or by hitch-hiking. We become his travelling
companion. By the side of the road, even when
after waiting for six hours, Erwan points out
some houses over there in the distance, some
men and animals, perhaps even a circus. But
most of the time we share in the ebb and flow,
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Texte écrit dans le cadre de l’exposition d’Erwan Morère au festival des Rencontres d’Arles, en 2012, autour de l’anniversaire de l’Ecole nationale supérieure de la photographie d’Arles, dont il est issu.
this vortex that blurs all vision, a kind of meditation
on the move. He’s talking about territory; he’s also
saying that trains, motor cars, movement itself, are
also territories. Nothing is calculated, there’s no research.
It is difficult to be sure of the space-time within his
images. The artist’s gaze seems to be obstructed by a
personal diaphragm that combines the photographic
instant’s elusiveness to a desire for timelessness.
Overall, his pieces remind us of a notebook or a
sketchbook, though this dimension shouldn’t be opposed to his photographic language. On the contrary,
the result is only possible thanks to this choice that
can even be considered as the creative essence of
Erwan Morère’s singular and delicate body of works.
Top: Untitled, from the Saint-Efflam
series, Bretagne 2012
Bottom: Untitled, from the
Malmousque series, Marseille, 2013
When Erwan Morère draws his inspiration from the maritime atmosphere to create his coastal or underwater shots, it doesn’t look like
ideal vacation images. No, they are improbable, hallucinatory: sand
yachts gathered in the corner of the frame as an anxious herd of animals, encircled with a snowy pointillist halo or Martian boules players
that shoot bowls in a spatial latency.No landmarks, only vision remains.
To what extent does Erwan Morère play with reversal and visual disappearance? It is far too soon to know. Nevertheless, it would be possible
to image, for a brief moment, his future to be parallel to drawing derived practices, such as Xavier Zimmermann or Anne-LiseBroyer who
both tried in their recent series, to avoid classical photographic lines.
When Erwan Morère prints his coastal images on drawing paper, the
ink dries in multiple dots, emphasizing again a graphite rendering. He
always maintains an ounce of reality that stops the gaze on the verge
of a perceptive swing. If he « redraws » the world, it is always thanks
to photography and, thus, reminding Giacomelli’s fascinating spirit, his
subtle geometrical landscapes or his priests with black cassocks, dancing farandoles in the milky white of the image.
Finally, ErwanMorère seems to disregard the objectivity of his contemporaries with the tautological language impregnated with a visionary
liberty he chose. At a time when all the photographic paths are open
X. Zimmermann a un temps composé des Paysages français structurés à l’instar des codes picturaux. Par
la suite, il a livré des paysages ordinaires donnant de l’importance au motif dans le paysage puis, dans ses
dernières séries, des paysages de plus en pus abstraits, dont le sujet s’efface au gré des rajouts picturaux.
A.-L. Broyer, appréciant le rapprochement avec la littérature et la philosophie, propose des œuvres singulières qui mêlent mots et images. Depuis peu, elle déborde encore et conçoit des images-dessins où le
crayon se mélange au grain photographique.
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and when the image language spreads out, it
makes sense.
Christine Ollier
juillet 2013
Top: Untitled, from the Saint-Efflam
series, Bretagne 2012
L’exposition d’Erwan Morère est soutenue par Olympus France.
Noir Limite a réuni pour un temps dans les années 1980 les photographes jean-Claude Bélégou, Florence
Chevallier et Yves Trémorin.
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ERWAN MORERE
Il est né en 1985 en France.
Il vit et travaille à Marseille.
Erwan Morère obtient un diplôme de sociologie de l’art et anthropologie
culturelle à Paris avant d’intégrer en 2008 l’École nationale supérieure de la
photographie. Pendant ses trois années d’étude à Arles, il développe son travail personnel en photographiant notamment ses pérégrinations aux ÉtatsUnis (série “On the line”), au Canada (série “Saskatoon”) et en Islande (série
“Seydisfjördur”). En 2010, il obtient le diplôme de l’École avec les félicitations
du jury, et réalise une importante série d’expositions personnelles et collectives, avant de partir un an en prise de vue dans un grand voyage par voie
terrestre de la Malaisie à l’Estonie. Ce travail donne lieu à la série “20 564
km” qui est alors exposée dans une exposition itinérante à travers l’Uruguay
en avril 2012, où il obtient avec le photographe Pablo Guidali le premier prix
du FondoConcursables du Ministère de la Culture Uruguayen (MEC).
Durant l’été 2012, Erwan Morère est ensuite invité aux Rencontres d’Arles de
la Photographie lors d’une exposition intitulée «Très loin à l’Est, il y a l’Ouest
». Son travail est alors remarqué par la critique d’Art Natacha Wolinski qui le
présente comme une des révélations du Festival. Fin 2012, il repart en Islande
pour réaliser la série «A walk on the wildside» grâce au soutien d’Olympus
France, partenaire officiel du photographe.
Expositions (sélection)
2013 2012 2010
2009
« La brume de beau temps », chapelle de Saint-Efflam, Bretagne
Les Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie d’Arles
«Fabulas», Subte Municipal, Montevideo, Uruguay
«Fabulas», Fundación Pablo Atchugarry, Maldonado, Uruguay
teatro de Lavalleja, Minas, Uruguay
Casa de la Cultura, San José, Uruguay
Bastióndel Carmen, Colonia, Uruguay
« L’accrochage de Noël », galerie «Le magasin de jouets», Arles, France
« Murmure d’images » (partenariat Olympus France), Hôtel Arlatan, Arles
« Heimlich » (exposition collective), Église Saint-Julien, Arles, France
Projection festival «Voies off», Arles, France
« Europe hophop » (exposition collective), Nuit de l’année, Ren
contres d’Arles
Galerie du Lucernaire, Mois off de la Photographie, Paris, France
Galerie « l’R du Cormoran », Pernes-les-Fontaines, France
« Europe hophop » (exposition collective), Europa Punkt, Berlin, Allemagne
« Europe hophop »(exposition collective), Mois OFF de la Photo, Paris,
« Europe hophop» (exposition collective), Centre Culturel français, Malte