delpire and co is delighted to invite Luce Lebart and Marcelline Delbecq to discuss the book Natures Vivantes, Images & Jardins d’Albert Kahn, recently published by Atelier EXB.
This collective work takes the reader on a poetic stroll through the collections of still and moving images in the Musée Albert-Kahn, in dialogue with the landscape garden at Boulogne and the lost garden at Cap-Martin, Albert Kahn’s Mediterranean residence.
‘Little known, these dazzling images show an attention to and a sensitive eye for seasonal and atmospheric variations, the growth and metamorphosis of plants, the profusion and variations of colour in nature, and the magic of light and its fluctuations.’ – Luce Lebart
‘There she is, staring into space, or perhaps talking to us who are looking at her without her knowing it, her eyes, her face, her skin, an escaped pallor – a flight forward without the sun. Behind her, an unusual plant, Aloe arborescens from southern Africa, whose sap was used to try and heal Hiroshima victims. The backdrop to this unusual garden is warm, perhaps only lukewarm, and it’s hard to know whether the wind is blowing through the picture or whether, on that day (but which day was it?), it had risen at nightfall, plunging the guests into their deepest sleep. ‘Marcelline Delbecq
Luce Lebart is a French photography specialist, art historian and researcher for the Archive of Modern Conflict collection. The author of numerous publications, including Musée départemental Albert Kahn: transmettre une vision humaniste (Gallimard, 2022), she is also co-editor of the reference work Une histoire mondiale des femmes photographes (Textuel and Thames & Hudson, 2020-2022).
Marcelline Delbecq is an artist, writer and translator. Over time, her practice has moved away from material production to focus on the potential of writing as image.
*IMAGE_TEXTE is a series of discussions and readings, led by artists, photographers, publishers, graphic designers and theorists, to consider the Image in its broadest forms, proposed by delpire & co.
