Calandre Philippe

Virtuoso of photomontage, Philippe Calandre, transforms industrial sites into labyrinthine cities. At the Espace Vallès, he offers a revisiting of the megalomaniac architecture of modern times, a reconsideration of the great myths of ancient architecture.
Tower of Babel, Babylonian astronomical observatory, cyclopean stone walls, Piranesian bridges, the megalithic monument of Stonehenge…The most unreasonable references come to mind in describing the imaginary landscapes of Philippe CALANDRE. Imaginary? Not altogether, because his work utilizes and adds upon photomontage. From views of industrial sites taken by camera the artist creates digital collages on his computer, matching fragments of images and thus recomposing reality at will. He not only makes all human presence disappear, but he multiplies the confusion of hangars, of silos, of chimneys, of beams, of piping, and of flights of stairs, transforming an already complex real into Daedalusian vision and a waking dream. Grandiloquent architectures of vast perspectives, planted in desert spaces, halfway from the prodigious forge of Vulcan and Mount Othrys of the Titans…

“Industrial architecture has no aesthetic constraint, but just the constraints of of productivity, explains Philippe CALANDRE. It has more free forms, but more violent ones, because they are designed with only productivity in mind.” Departing from this postulate, the photographer allows us to discover worlds as grandiose as they are rickety, megalopolises menaced by collapse. The fate dealt to architecture struck with the delirium of power (whether they be Stalinesque, Mussolinian, or achieved by the madness of capitalist grandeur) is that of cathedrals, of pyramids, and of mausoleums: that of ruin. There exists a powerful poetic from the uncultivated world of industry. Philippe CALANDRE engulfs himself in this imaginary world: dusty buildings, corroded walls, tarnished windows, etc. A veritable magic results, but a cold magic. The truly monumental formats of these impressions (tied to the extreme care brought to the construction of the photographic montages) leads the visitor to the exhibition to enter through the ground floor and into the image. One experiences, before the photomontages of Philippe CALANDRE, a true feeling of being crushed. And a vertigo that takes hold.

Jean-Louis Roux

Chauvel Claire

Claire Chauvel was born in 1986. She lives and works inthe east of France.

« […] The difficulty in seizing the image for good and the mistery of nature nourish Claire Chauvel's pictorial quest. The search for a rythm enables to eventually establish a connexion with nature, at the point where thoughts vanish. The artist is searching for something like a fundamental beat, approached with a touch that is rarely serene and a relentless effort to strip the landscape from whatever hides it. But the quest is infinite: a blind spot always remains, which requires the territorialization to go on, on the inside as well as on the outside. » Anne Malherbe

Class Marine

Graduated from l'Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris in 2007, Marine Class lives in  Nantes and works in La Chapelle-Basse-Mer.