Armand Quetsch
Dystopian circles/fragments…all along

5 March – 14 May 2017
Opening : 4 March 2017, 11 am in the presence of the artist

The starting point for “dystopian circles/fragments… all along” was a journey leading from Brussels, the political epicentre of Europe, to the far-flung shores of Lampedusa, Italy’s southernmost island in the Mediterranean Sea which has gained notoriety as a key point of entry for refugees and illegal immigrants aboard makeshift boats.

While the initial goal of this trip was to address the refugee issue, along the way Armand Quetsch shifted his gaze to the European landscape and the extent to which it was revealing of the tensions and malaise of his time.

His zig-zag itinerary took him to Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, to Athens in Greece and then on to Albania and around the Balkans region in search of emblematic places, zones of conflict, monuments, traces, symbols and settings. History and the European dimension are omnipresent in how the territory and the memory of the landscape have been shaped.

The “dystopian circles/fragments…all along “exhibition is an open narrative conceived as a dynamic and engaging event. By way of a rich visual and formal repertoire it offers a multi-layered immersive experience made up of a play of correspondences and confrontations: a puzzle in which each image calls upon the viewer to recreate a whole from out of their own understanding, imagination and experience.

Armand Quetsch invites us to be fellow travelers in his contemplative odyssey. Without any short-cuts and against a backdrop of a mapping of Europe that is highly contemporary, he strives to challenge the photographic medium and explore the limits of representation while pursuing his own personal quest to apprehend the world.

Presentation of the book “dystopian circles / fragments…all along“ by Armand Quetsch published by Peperoni books with the support of Bourse CNA – Aide à la création et à la diffusion en Photographie and stART-up, Oeuvre Nationale de Secours Grande- Duchesse Charlotte

Exhibition presented in the framework of the European Month of Photography