For his first museum exhibition in Belgium, the German photographer Jochen Lempert has taken over four rooms at the MACS with his delicate photographs of nature. When faced with the poetic intensity of each individual photograph, we are initially struck by the simplicity of the means that are used, such as the 35 mm camera with a normal focal length, the home-made, black-and-white prints, the various formats of baryta paper that the artist places against the white background of the walls without any frames, or even the simple photograms of plants or animals. The evocative illustrative power of the sequences of photographs, depending on how they are arranged, demonstrates a great mastery of composition and installation. These constellations of images, some of which are presented in showcases, form a body of work that invites both contemplation and interpretation, through an inexhaustible web of connections generated by the similarities or contrasts of shapes, tones and subjects. After studying biology with a specialisation in dragonflies, Jochen Lempert turned to photography at the end of the 1980s and extended his meticulous observation of the animal, plant and human world with an extreme sensitivity to infinitesimal phenomena and minute existences: the traces of tiny frogs, the luminous flight of fireflies, a gentle breeze in dead leaves, a constellation of freckles on a shoulder… any poetic, photosensitive ecology of discreet life that is close to hand.
Jochen Lempert was born in 1958 in Moers (Germany). He lives and works in Hamburg.
© Jochen Lempert
MACS – Museum of Contemporary Arts of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, Rue Sainte-Louise 82 7301 Hornu MACS – Museum of Contemporary Arts of the Wallonia-Brussels FederationFor his first museum exhibition in Belgium, the German photographer Jochen Lempert has taken over four rooms at the MACS with his delicate photographs of nature. When faced with the poetic intensity of each individual photograph, we are initially struck by the simplicity of the means that are used, such as the 35 mm camera with a normal focal length, the home-made, black-and-white prints, the various formats of baryta paper that the artist places against the white background of the walls without any frames, or even the simple photograms of plants or animals. The evocative illustrative power of the sequences of photographs, depending on how they are arranged, demonstrates a great mastery of composition and installation. These constellations of images, some of which are presented in showcases, form a body of work that invites both contemplation and interpretation, through an inexhaustible web of connections generated by the similarities or contrasts of shapes, tones and subjects. After studying biology with a specialisation in dragonflies, Jochen Lempert turned to photography at the end of the 1980s and extended his meticulous observation of the animal, plant and human world with an extreme sensitivity to infinitesimal phenomena and minute existences: the traces of tiny frogs, the luminous flight of fireflies, a gentle breeze in dead leaves, a constellation of freckles on a shoulder… any poetic, photosensitive ecology of discreet life that is close to hand.
Jochen Lempert was born in 1958 in Moers (Germany). He lives and works in Hamburg.
© Jochen Lempert