Jardin d’hiver
Jochen Lempert
View of the exhibition Jardin d’hiver (Winter garden) by Jochen Lempert, Centre d’art contemporain d’Ivry – le Crédac, 2020. © Jochen Lempert / ADAGP, Paris, 2020. Courtesy of the artist and galleries ProjecteSD (Barcelona) et BQ (Berlin). Photo: André Morin / le Crédac.
View of the exhibition Jardin d’hiver (Winter garden) by Jochen Lempert, Centre d’art contemporain d’Ivry – le Crédac, 2020. © Jochen Lempert / ADAGP, Paris, 2020. Courtesy of the artist and galleries ProjecteSD (Barcelona) et BQ (Berlin). Photo: André Morin / le Crédac.
View of the exhibition Jardin d’hiver (Winter garden) by Jochen Lempert, Centre d’art contemporain d’Ivry – le Crédac, 2020. © Jochen Lempert / ADAGP, Paris, 2020. Courtesy of the artist and galleries ProjecteSD (Barcelona) et BQ (Berlin). Photo: André Morin / le Crédac.
View of the exhibition Jardin d’hiver (Winter garden) by Jochen Lempert, Centre d’art contemporain d’Ivry – le Crédac, 2020. From left to right: Untitled (Fishes and the Human Body), 2017; Untitled (Botany Bay), 2019; Untitled (David), 2019; Etruscan Sand V, 2016; Swans (Stockholm), 2018. © Jochen Lempert / ADAGP, Paris, 2020. Courtesy of the artist and galleries ProjecteSD (Barcelona) et BQ (Berlin). Photo: André Morin / le Crédac.
View of the exhibition Jardin d’hiver (Winter garden) by Jochen Lempert, Centre d’art contemporain d’Ivry – le Crédac, 2020. © Jochen Lempert / ADAGP, Paris, 2020. Courtesy of the artist and galleries ProjecteSD (Barcelona) et BQ (Berlin). Photo: André Morin / le Crédac.
View of the exhibition Jardin d’hiver (Winter garden) by Jochen Lempert, Centre d’art contemporain d’Ivry – le Crédac, 2020. From left to right: Sunset, 2013; Rain, 2007; Colibri, 2017; Bees (Rome), 2012; Untitled (Phrasikleia Kore), 2020; Sleeping Monkey, 2013; Rock, 2013; Flame, 2018; Kirschen III, 2019; Shadow on Stairs, 2014; Cat, 2017; Seefeder, 2018. © Jochen Lempert / ADAGP, Paris, 2020. Courtesy of the artist and galleries ProjecteSD (Barcelona) et BQ (Berlin). Photo: André Morin / le Crédac.
The show at Le Crédac called Jardin d’hiver (Winter Garden) followed on Sudden Spring and Predicted Autumn1, a program that the artist pursued in time with the seasons. Lempert designed an installation of vitrines like botanical cases but holding photo compositions that play out a vegetal motif as the prints of a nature hanging on the promise of renewal. An Ipomoea tricolor (morning glory), a detail from Botticelli’s Spring, and the floral print of a cotton shirt are elements that form a visual narrative through the play of free conceptual or formal associations fashioned by the artist.
Silver prints, invariably in black and white on matt baryta paper, are selected from a large corpus of photographs taken daily from life and revealed in his own laboratory. The format of each photograph is determined in relation to its environment: its context of appearance, a display case or an exhibition wall, and the set of images in which it is inscribed.
Video(s)
Exhibition Film, directed by Thomas James. © Le Crédac, 2020.
Documents
Artist biography
Jochen Lempert was born in 1958 in Moers, Germany and lives in Hamburg. A graduate in biology, he began making art alongside his activities at the University of Bonn. A self-taught photographer, he initially used the medium as a documentary tool. He was also active in the experimental film collective Schmelzdahin, which explored, between 1979 and 1989, the chemical possibilities that analog film offered artists.
Lempert’s activities as a biologist, notably observing and mapping fauna and flora for research institutions, were a large part of his life until recently. His photography, exhibited internationally, has been influenced by the experimental and documentary dimension that was part of his studies of living organisms.
Partnerships
With the generous support of the Goethe-Institut.
Sponsoring for the opening : Grolsch, Les Nouveaux Robinson
