France - Ivry-sur-Seine - Le Crédac - Geert Goiris - Imagine there's no countries

FRANCE - IVRY-SUR-SEINE - LE CREDAC - GEERT GOIRIS - IMAGINE THERE'S NO COUNTRIES
September 9 - November 8, 2009

In 1971 John Lennon recorded "Imagine," a pacifist hymn from which Geert Goiris has drawn the title for his first solo show at Crédac.

Goiris (born in 1971), a photographer, works exclusively with the traditional camera, taking on all of the necessary rigor the medium demands. He manages to capture the strange spatio-temporal weight where time is crystallized. As Goiris explains it, "The camera is an instrument that enables one to produce abstractions, scenes that the eye cannot see. Time is a crucial factor in that. I frequently use very long exposures (lasting several hours sometimes) that make a different, non-anthropomorphic framework possible."

Goiris aims to record the unusualness and rarity of certain sites with the clarity and precision of Flemish painting, while offering viewers a plus, a range of exotic motifs like a polar station, an observatory, architectural UFOs from the 1970s, a wish "tree", a cement baobab, a solitary rhinoceros, an albino kangaroo....

Goiris tackles images more as a visual artist than as a reporter. He has been uilding up an intellectual and perceptible reflection on borders, which has led him to Chile, Mongolia and Spitsbergen. For his latest work focusing on the optical and atmospheric phenomenon of the "whiteout," the artist traveled to Antarctica.

At Crédac, Goiris will be showing a series of images (displayed in slide shows) that come from such an experience, when the sky is as white as the ground and it becomes impossible to distinguish one from the other, and where observers feel as though they are uniformly surrounded. "It's not a far cry from a trip on the moon," says the artist with regard to his expedition. Goiris will also be showing large-scale photographic prints in poster format that are directly pasted to the walls, classically framed photos, and light boxes.

The exhibition is curated by Claire Le Restif.

More information:
Centre d'art contemporain d'Ivry - Le Crédac
www.credac.fr

Image:
Geert Goiris, from the series Whiteout, 2008-2009
Courtesy: galerie Art : Concept, Paris