INTERSECTIONS OF MEMORY AND SPACE

Robert Morat Galerie proposes an exploration into how memory, both personal and collective, intersects with the physical and imagined spaces we inhabit. This presentation brings together new works by Jessica Backhaus, Christian Patterson, Andrea Grützner, Mårten Lange, and Lia Darjes. Each artist, through their distinct lens, navigates the delicate threads that connect our memories to the spaces around us, inviting viewers into a multi-layered dialogue between what is seen, remembered, and felt.

Each of the presented artists is launching a new publication at Paris Photo. Christian Patterson "Gong Co." (TBW Books and Images Vevey Editions) is the long-awaited follow-up to the instant-classic true-crime fiction "Redheaded Peckerwood" and murkily autobiographical "Bottom of the Lake". "Gong Co" is a long-form, monumental memento mori to the decline, death and decay of a small grocery store in the heart of the Mississippi Delta, made over 20 years, from 2003 to 2023.

Jessica Backhaus "Plein Soleil" (Kehrer Verlag) is the follow-up to the color and light studies of her series "Cut Outs". In this new series, colored paper is exposed to direct sunlight. It is deformed, bent, casting hard shadows - exploring the photographic possibilities of abstraction and crossing between documentary photography and poetic, intuitive color figuration.

Lia Darjes "Plates I - XXXI" (Chose Commune) is shortlisted for the Aperture Paris Photo Photobook Award. It is an experimental study of still life imagery. Lia Darjes has equipped cameras with motion detectors, capturing the late night visitors to left behind garden dinner tables - introducing a charming aspect of chance to the otherwise highly controlled and staged context of still life photographs.

Andrea Grützner "Erbgericht" (Hartmann Books) has been selected for the Elles x Paris Photo Parcours. It is the long-awaited publication to her award winning, long time project of architectural abstractions titled "Erbgericht". Erbgericht is a building, a guesthouse in the East German village of Polenz. Generations have memories attached to the many spaces of this building that Andrea Grützer is capturing. Using color flashes, strong shadows and shifted perspective lines, Andrea Grützner is creating an examination of emotional and visual perception, questioning memory and orientation.

Mårten Lange "The Palace" (self published) is exploring the role of architecture as a repository for history, memories and emotions. The work is based around the concept of a memory palace - a technique developed before the invention of the printing press to memorise large amounts of information. The photographs in the series were made at archaeological sites and historic buildings, dating from antiquity to the Middle Ages. However, they are not documentations of these places, but fragments of a stranger whole. Rather than capturing a specific chapter of history, they offer a meditation on the enduring presence of the past.