埃里克·裴欧-隔墙

Galerie DUMONTEIL Shanghai is pleased to present French artist Eric Pillot’s most recent photography series “Parois (Walls)”, featuring a representative selection of 14 works produced in 3 varied dimensions. Following the success of the series “In Situ” and “Horizons”, the artist once again evokes the viewer’s imagination with “Parois” through his architectural, pictorial, and poetic approach to the image, and further explores the connection between people, landscape, and space.

在这个新的摄影系列中，裴欧把视线转向了伫立的墙垣——它们极少受到关注，却总是牵引着我们的步伐，成就我们眼前的风景。裴欧镜头下的隔墙脱离了自身所在的场景，以独立个体的姿态邀请观众重新审视它们的存在。

受纯粹摄影(Straight Photography)的影响，“隔墙”系列均采用正面拍摄，有着清晰、无“漏光”、无变形的特点。裴欧的作品还调和了平面和空间的深度。在毫无布景和修饰的情况下，他选择放弃透视, 利用直观正面的取景方式将墙面和地面组成的空间扁平化。这种构图使观者的视线停留在这个空间继而产生走进画面的错觉。

裴欧借助细腻的印刷，图像色调有时明亮而利落，有时苍白而空灵。他像摆弄颜料一样对这些墙体的元素加以运用，所呈现的风景游离于形象与抽象的 边界，使观众迷失于写实与抽象、绘画与建筑摄影之中。

此外，“隔墙”系列以近似抽象表现主义的方式，用强烈的色彩消解了透视，激发观众的想象力，并赋予了观众自由而完 整的诠释空间。正如法国作家米歇尔·布托 (Michel Butor) 曾将罗斯科 (Mark Rothko) 的绘画比作“敏感的墙”[1]，并邀请我们以感性的方式超脱平庸, 埃里克·裴欧的“隔墙”创造了一个纯粹而流动的空间让我们能够完全沉浸在眼前的画面之中。

Parois — Straight, Flattened and Painterly Image

In this series, Eric PILLOT lays his eyes on these erected walls that accompany our footsteps and shape our landscapes, but to which we pay little or no attention. Under Pillot’s lens, each wall has been detached from its environment, inviting the viewer to re-examine their existence as independent subjects.

Fruit of Straight Photography, the “Parois” series uses the principle of a frontal, sharp, leak-free, transformation-free shot. Pillot’s work also reconciles the depth of plane and space. Without setting or decoration, he discards perspective and flattens the space composed of walls and grounds through an intuitive frontal view. This composition thus allows the viewer to focus on this space and truly enter the image. 

With the help of delicate printing, Pillot’s images are sometimes bright and crisp, sometimes pale and ethereal. He manipulates these wall elements like paint, presenting landscapes that stray from the border between figuration and abstraction, leaving the viewer lost between realism and abstraction, painting and photography.

In an almost abstract expressionist manner, “Parois” also dissolves perspective with strong colors, stimulates the viewer’s imagination, and gives the viewer complete freedom of interpretation. Just as French writer Michel Butor likens Mark Rothko’s paintings to “sensitive walls” [1] and invites us to transcend the banal in a sensual way, Pillot’s “Parois” series also creates a pure and fluid space where we can fully immerse ourselves in the images.

时间的概念也在埃里克·裴欧的作品中有所体现。如果说“地平线”中的时间是悬浮于空气和水之间的“一眼万年”，那“隔墙”里的时间则是镶嵌在残垣断壁中的“流年光影”—— 局部剥脱的墙体、褪色的墙面，墙根缝隙中露出的植物，大自然也活跃在这道时间的风景里。

同样在时间的作用下，“隔墙”自身的物理属性开始变得充满人文色彩。作品中人的缺席恰巧凸显了残缺的存在，正如这份存在搅动了摄影师的好奇与情感，它也同样吸引和牵绊着观者。细看之下，有的墙面还夹杂着各种细微的人为痕迹 (涂鸦、划痕等) ，有些已经淡去，有些相互叠加，让人联想到塞·托姆布雷 (Cy Twombly) 那些带着擦除痕迹的铅笔画，在观者有意识的追寻这些痕迹的那一刻，艺术家的目的就已经达到了。

Parois: the Vestiges of Time, the Works of Nature and the Imprints of Man 

The concept of time is reflected in Eric Pillot's works. If the time in “Horizon” is a glance of a million years suspended between air and water, the time in “Parois” is the passage of time embedded in the ruined walls — the partially peeling surface, the faded paints, the plants grow in the cracks of the walls, as nature is also active in this landscape of the time.

Also under the effect of time, a humanistic dimension began to grow on these walls. Humans are absent from the frame, but their very absence serves to highlight these many mutilations.They seduce and intrigue the beholder, just as they stirred the photographer's emotions and curiosity. Under close scrutiny, some of the walls are interspersed with subtle traces (graffiti, scratches, etc.), some faded, some superimposed on each other, reminiscent of Cy Twombly's pencil drawings with erasure marks, and the artist's goal is achieved the moment the viewer consciously pursues these traces.

“隔墙”作为人造景观，也属于地景摄影的范畴。1975年的“新地志摄影展”(New Topographics: Photographs of a man-altered Landscape) [2] 作为摄影史上的一个转折点，确立了“人造物(物体，建筑，遗迹...)”在当代风景摄影中的重要地 位——清新脱俗的自然景观让位于不加修饰的工业景观、区的扩张和不被注意的日常场景。和那些肩负使命的先驱一样， 裴欧也要将他见到的这些城市景观化为不朽之物。

“Parois” can also be compared to a topographic approach, in line with the group exhibition “New Topographics: Photographs of a man-altered Landscape” [2] —a turning point in the history of photography that established the importance of “man-made objects ” in contemporary landscape photography—pictures of transcendent natural vistas gave way to unromanticized views of stark industrial landscapes, suburban sprawl, and everyday scenes not usually given a second glance. Like his predecessors, Eric PILLOT carries the mission to immortalize these urban landscapes he meets.

随着疫情的反复，伴随着“强制隔离”、“社交距离”、“边境封锁”，我们被迫用恐惧和疏离筑起了“心墙”，防范着病毒任何可能的来源。而埃里克·裴欧的“隔墙”却为我们描绘了墙的另一种可能。它更像是一扇打开的窗户，一个做梦的邀请，让观众能暂时忘却当下，走进属于每一幅“隔墙”的故事里。

The reoccurring of the coronavirus pandemic (accompanied by social distancing, enforced confinement, even state lockdown) has forced us to build psychological “walls” with fear and alienation, guarding against any possible virus source. Eric Pillot’s “Parois”, however, depicts another possibility of the walls for us. It is more like an open window, an invitation to dream, allowing the audience to put the worries aside and walk into the story that belongs to each work.