Observatoires / Laboratoires

This large-format monograph offers an opportunity to rediscover the work of Lynne Cohen, an international figure in contemporary photography, on the occasion of her exhibition at the Centre Pompidou. The book presents previously unpublished photographs from the period when Lynne Cohen switched from printmaking and sculpture to large-format chamber photography in the 1970s, under the influence of Minimalism, Pop Art and Conceptual Art. The visual corpus, arranged thematically rather than serially, reflects both the artist’s conceptual rigor and her irony as an ongoing investigator of the configuration of social space.

The Canadian photographer creates images devoid of any human presence. First, she focused on ordinary private and semi-public interiors – living rooms, banquet halls, waiting rooms, spas – and then on increasingly aseptic settings such as laboratories, shooting ranges, observation rooms and training facilities. In these sometimes kitschy settings, a certain mystery and disquieting atmosphere pervade. Rigorous framing, a certain distance and a light that emphasizes materials and surfaces give the places she captures an appearance that is both “surreal” and fake. Domestic interiors and workplaces evoke a diffuse social control.

Essays by Jean-Pierre Criqui and Andrew Lugg, the artist’s widower and intellectual accomplice, as well as by exhibition curators Florian Ebner and Matthias Pfaller, shed light on this visual corpus and its critical perception. Testimonies from artists Ricarda Roggan and Marina Gadonneix reveal the extent to which her work finds important extensions in contemporary photography today.