Frédéric Lefever is a photographer who looks to the world with a frontal eye. We asked him to tell us about his art and the exhibition AOC, visible until October 20th, at the arrêt sur l’image galerie.
How was the AOC exhibition created ?
I came to Bordeaux in 2013, for the inauguration of the Stadium exhibition, in arc en rêve centre d’architecture, in which some of my photographs of football stadiums were shown. While driving through the vineyards, I noticed all these names of wine castles and all these appellations with often, a different lettering or writing. I was interested in the richness of this typographic writing. I have always had a lot of interest in typographic lettering.
In 2016, I returned to Bordeaux, for the inauguration of the exhibition Jeux de Balles in the Frac Aquitaine and Hors-Jeu * in arrêt sur image gallery. During an exhibition visit to a wine castle with Nathalie Lamire-Fabre, I noticed all these names again. The idea of a series around these architectures and typographies came back to my mind. I settled 1 month and a half in Bordeaux during the summer of 2017, and visited all the wineries in the region. 250 photos.
There are only 24 photos in the exhibition …
Why so little, out of the 250 photos taken ? Because there are topics that are not suitable. Some are plastically more interesting than others. I also chose to have a varied ensemble, representing the variety of the wine castles, from the most prestigious to the very simple winery, representing the variety of typography and terroirs of the Bordeaux area.
Why do you choose to photograph the buildings in this frontal style?
Leaving school, as a young artist, I asked myself the following question : what can I do with all that I had learned, with all this history of photography, all these influences ? I first tried different framing, and then I tried to evacuate the very idea of framing so I would be able to focus on the subject. It’s been 25 years since I photograph frontally the buildings that surrounds me. One could say that I use a documentary method, without any documentary purpose.
* In Hors-Jeu, Frédéric Lefever’s exhibition presented a selection of unpublished prints from the “Frontons” series, which complete the Jeu de Balle exhibition in the FRAC Aquitaine. This set was accompanied by photographs of stadium tribunes and older photographs of colored walls that prefigure the work on the basque pelota walls (called Frontons).
arrêt sur l’image galerie
FRÉDÉRIC LEFEVER – Photographie
du 6 septembre au 20 octobre 2018