For his first monographic exhibition at le Plateau, Eric Poitevin has chosen to mount a collection of unpublished photographs, in a vividly conceived installation that will transform the whole of the arts center into one large photographic work-in-progress.
Playing off the concept of the “all over” installation, Eric Poitevin presents four series on landscapes and the human body. In order to escape convention, he masks the actual people and places photographed, leaving only certain traces that create a more meditative relation with the surrounding world.
Full frontal close-ups of still forest landscapes, his photographs reveal themselves ever so slowly to the viewer, who suddenly finds himself face to face with a completely autonomous universe: “What moves me about trees is the illusion that they could exist without us. The best proof is that when you plant a tree, it’s very frustrating to know that you will never live to see it fully grown…” (Eric Poitevin).
Often taken early in the morning beneath the rain or fog, and in a light that just barely filters in, his photographs straddle the hours between day and night – an atmosphere all the more better to reveal the apparent impenetrability of things seen.
In a more recent series, he presents images of bare, unornamented faces that seem to halt the very passage of time. These faceless portraits impose themsleves on the viewer , leaving him with no apparent hiding place.
Finally, this exhibition will be the chance to see, for the very first time, a series of nudes on which Eric Poitevin has only been working for a few months.
Whether of plants, animals, or humans, these photographs reveal a fragile, suspended world in which what is seen is nevertheless impossible to fully grasp.
Curator : Eric Corne, previous co-director of le Plateau – in chage of artistic programming