Crisis, the first volume of The Sketchbooks from Another Age
Photography is conventionally considered as bearing testimony to the past. Yet it is tempting to invest it with an anticipatory role, using it as a means of fathoming a future whose early indications are perceptible to those with an inquisitive eye: the moment at which the image is captured frequently offers the kind of leap of imagination required for this to happen. At that very moment, the object being photographed shakes off its role, its function, to appear as one of our future vestiges – a kind of preview of the way it could be seen, by others, in another time.
These photographs taken in June 2016 in Gary, Joliet and Chicago do not constitute an account, let alone a report… that would be to insult their inhabitants, who are living through very dark times. The town presented could equally well be here or somewhere else… now or later. The places in the photographs are accessible to everyone: nothing forbidden has been done, except where curiosity involves taking shortcuts in an environment where the pedestrian has become an anachronism on the margins of unrelenting flows of vehicles.The town spread around giant factories entrenched like military encampments or implanted by a lake amongst dunes and lagoons. A band of savannah patrolled by a few coyotes separates them, forming a kind of no man’s land traversed by highways and railways conveying endless freight convoys spanning rivers on monumental steel drawbridges riddled with rust. Impacted by the crisis, people have quit the town, leaving homes and business premises empty and falling prey to the depredations of time. Come night, the silent factories no longer light up the sky with their brown-coloured flares. Not a sound, other than a few sirens. Only the breeze still blows down the streets of the neighbouring metropolis. All that remains are the austere remnants of the ultimate crisis that devalues the work done by man to such an extent that it loses its ultimate value.
This summer, Crisis will be exhibited at the Jardin de la Photographie from July 30 until August 20 in Bremblens, Switzerland.
Jean-Marc Yersin
Photographer
After studying photography in a photographic studio in Geneva and at the Photographic School in Vevey, Jean-Marc Yersin worked in advertising before turning to the report.
In 1980, he traveled to North America, from he brought back “Downtown”, about the place of the individual in major cities.
Upon his return, he worked as a photographer, working in ophthalmology, then at the Museum of Art and History in Geneva.
Since 1991 he has shared with his wife Pascale Bonnard Yersin the management of the Swiss Camera Museum in Vevey where he was a member of the founders of the Festival IMAGES ‘in 1995 and co-organizers in 1998 and 2000. He presided over the Fondation “Vevey Ville d’Images” at its creation.
For several years he was a member of the photography group of the Swiss Association for the Conservation of Audiovisual Heritage, Memoriav.
Before his retirement from the Museum in 2018, he gradually became a photographer. “Crisis” is his first achievement.
Publication
Crisis – Sketch Books from Another Age No. 1
16.5 x 21 cm / 48 pages. Printed in June 2017 by Polygravia SA, Châtel-Saint-Denis, Switzerland. © Jean-Marc Yersin, Blonay, Switzerland. Edition of 200 numbered and signed copies, in French, including 50 in English.
Jean-Marc Yersin
Photographer
After studying photography in a photographic studio in Geneva and at the Photographic School in Vevey, Jean-Marc Yersin worked in advertising before turning to the report.
In 1980, he traveled to North America, from he brought back “Downtown”, about the place of the individual in major cities.
Upon his return, he worked as a photographer, working in ophthalmology, then at the Museum of Art and History in Geneva.
Since 1991 he has shared with his wife Pascale Bonnard Yersin the management of the Swiss Camera Museum in Vevey where he was a member of the founders of the Festival IMAGES ‘in 1995 and co-organizers in 1998 and 2000. He presided over the Fondation “Vevey Ville d’Images” at its creation.
For several years he was a member of the photography group of the Swiss Association for the Conservation of Audiovisual Heritage, Memoriav.
Before his retirement from the Museum in 2018, he gradually became a photographer. “Crisis” is his first achievement.
Publication
Crisis – Sketch Books from Another Age No. 1
16.5 x 21 cm / 48 pages. Printed in June 2017 by Polygravia SA, Châtel-Saint-Denis, Switzerland. © Jean-Marc Yersin, Blonay, Switzerland. Edition of 200 numbered and signed copies, in French, including 50 in English.
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Crisis, the first volume of The Sketchbooks from Another Age
Photography is conventionally considered as bearing testimony to the past. Yet it is tempting to invest it with an anticipatory role, using it as a means of fathoming a future whose early indications are perceptible to those with an inquisitive eye: the moment at which the image is captured frequently offers the kind of leap of imagination required for this to happen. At that very moment, the object being photographed shakes off its role, its function, to appear as one of our future vestiges – a kind of preview of the way it could be seen, by others, in another time.
These photographs taken in June 2016 in Gary, Joliet and Chicago do not constitute an account, let alone a report… that would be to insult their inhabitants, who are living through very dark times. The town presented could equally well be here or somewhere else… now or later. The places in the photographs are accessible to everyone: nothing forbidden has been done, except where curiosity involves taking shortcuts in an environment where the pedestrian has become an anachronism on the margins of unrelenting flows of vehicles.The town spread around giant factories entrenched like military encampments or implanted by a lake amongst dunes and lagoons. A band of savannah patrolled by a few coyotes separates them, forming a kind of no man’s land traversed by highways and railways conveying endless freight convoys spanning rivers on monumental steel drawbridges riddled with rust. Impacted by the crisis, people have quit the town, leaving homes and business premises empty and falling prey to the depredations of time. Come night, the silent factories no longer light up the sky with their brown-coloured flares. Not a sound, other than a few sirens. Only the breeze still blows down the streets of the neighbouring metropolis. All that remains are the austere remnants of the ultimate crisis that devalues the work done by man to such an extent that it loses its ultimate value.
This summer, Crisis will be exhibited at the Jardin de la Photographie from July 30 until August 20 in Bremblens, Switzerland.
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Meredith Monk: CallingOct 21, 2023 – Mar 17, 2024Meredith Monk: Calling celebrates the visionary work of artist Meredith Monk, inviting visitors to explore and discover the work of one of this era’s most original artists. The exhibition translates her live performances and concerts into encounters with immersive video- and sound installations in the alcoves and open public space of the 700-year old church. (more…)
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Jananne Al-Ani / LANDMARKSOct 10 – Nov 11, 2023Ab-Anbar presents Landmarks, a solo exhibition by London-based Iraqi-born artist Jananne Al-Ani. The exhibition spans more than two decades of photographic and moving image work, focusing on Al-Ani’s longstanding interest in the power of the gaze in response to lens-based technologies, the significance of eye-witness testimony, and the disappearance of the body in highly charged and contested landscapes. (more…)
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The Last HumansAlienation in the AnthropoceneWe have fundamentally altered the earth’s ecosystem by disrupting the natural rhythm of our planet and in doing so have created a new chapter in the evolution of Earth and a new stage of uncertainty. (more…)
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Thomas Schütte / Westkunstmodelle 1:1Sep 16, 2023 – Jan 28, 2024More than forty years after he first envisioned them, Thomas Schütte will now see three of his architectural models from the legendary Westkunst exhibition (1981) take shape at full scale. (more…)
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Autumn at the InstitutNov 3 – Dec 24, 2023After opening its doors to the public on the occasion of five in situ previewing programmes in 2019 (extraORDINAIRE), 2020 (EN-QUÊTE), 2021 (Charles de Gaulle under the eye of the photographers and Perspectives), and in the spring of 2023 (Spring at the Institut), the Institut pour la photographie is presenting its sixth and final preview program (more…)
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I Declare a Permanent State of HappinessKenneth GoldsmithMy entire poetic production is founded upon Wittgenstein’s later writings. Although it has sat on my shelf for decades, I never actually read the Tractatus. But I always loved the idea of it; I am a conceptual writer, after all. –Kenneth Goldsmith (more…)
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Paolo Salvador: Misterios inscritos en telaSep 7 – Nov 12, 2023Peres Projects is pleased to present Misterios inscritos en tela, Paolo Salvador’s (b. 1990 in Lima, PE) fourth solo exhibition with the gallery, and his first at our Seoul gallery. In his analysis of Francis Bacon’s Figures, Gilles Deleuze pondered one of the perennial questions in postmodern painting: how does one make invisible forces visible? (more…)
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Torino Art Week 2023November 2023Turin is getting ready to host its annual Torino Art Week. With a shared objective of institutional and collateral art fairs, and the participation of museums, galleries and independent spaces all over the city, Torino Art Week 2023 opens the first week of November with a huge calendar of events (more…)
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Antoni Tàpies. The Practice of ArtSep 15, 2023 – Jan 7, 2024As part of the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the EU and on the occasion of the centenary of the birth of Antoni Tàpies (1923–2012), Bozar presents the most important Tàpies retrospective in almost 20 years. The exhibition, organised by the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, in collaboration with Bozar and the Fundació Antoni Tàpies, offers a comprehensive overview of Tàpies’ work (more…)
