Catherine Bodmer

DUO
09.02–10.09.2010
Room 1

The subjects of Catherine Bodmer’s photographs are spaces with uncertain or precarious functions. The ambivalent nature of these bare places, from frozen lakes to roadways and vacant lots, derives from their potential to change over time. This idea of transformation, which is central to Bodmer’s work, is developed in the splitting and alteration of her photographs which, in both their structure and their tiniest details, call for active observation.

Contrary to what these diptychs might at first glance suggest, they never take the form of complete symmetry. While various mirror effects are already present in the spaces being photographed, digital deconstruction and reconstruction of landscapes, people, buildings and objects highlights their duplication. In not matching completely, however, their similitude is broken and doubt is sown as to the plausibility of the places and situations depicted.

While some of Bodmer’s images may suggest they are fictional, a momentary halt in an unfolding story, they avoid narrative. The series The Moebius Strip illustrates this parallel through the staging of characters following various paths from one photograph to the next. The resulting movement thus affords new readings without evading the eternal return to the image in question.

Aseman Sabet

trans. Timothy Barnard