A photography project by Aline Diépois & Thomas Gizolme
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In the valleys, from the high summits that surround Zermatt, the gigantic movement of the glacier is frozen, like an irreversible snapshot. Trompe-l’œil and capture, seizure of time, suspended guide-lines. Here Alemannic Switzerland is at its highest point of accomplishment, in the heart of nature displayed in carefully handled emptiness. Cars are forbidden, the little trains are electric, and on the paths to the Alps, in the depths of the forest, wooden bins have been positioned in order for walkers to dispose the excrements of their dogs. A decor that inspires respect and orders us to blend in. The photographs of Aline Diépois and Thomas Gizolme have been won over by this established state of things, and, stepping towards subtraction, they let texture follow its own course – cycles, mutation and solitary accidents are imprinted throughout the seasons. In Zermatt, the seasons pass one after the other, but have no power over a history that has fallen to pieces. Both the descriptive and the recital shrink and disappear; traces of things remain, premises, autonomous impressions, blots of shadow, marks in the snow that are received and recorded by a gesture similar to work on tracing paper. The rare human silhouettes and colour are incorporated into this immobile flux like annexes to the autarkic oxygen of Zermatt as a place. Scales of things have to be forgotten in order for the landscape to be abolished and for the shock between the colossal and the minuscule to draw its patterns and produce its effect. The imprint of plants appears to be mineral and gigantic, the summits and perspectives are turned upside down, the immobility of stone and ice resembles a fossilized tumult, a flow of ages. The almost total effacing of intention in these photographs lets other things appear – as if by imposition – in the glacial mist or the pastel intoxicated by altitude: a form of nature in which texture and matter take on the aspect of puzzles, fractals, the interweaving of crystals and of gypsum. Time and subject are diffracted; the existence of things takes form like a chemical sublimate. These ups and downs of mute logic and unthought-of mirror-games have laid down their principles for the composition of a book, reinforcing this choice by using over-aged rolls of film whose texture, matured by the coldness of wintry mountains, has worked alone, with its specifically intimate process. Since the image has been captured in this form of withdrawal, its pictorial force comes across as a natural element: a contemplated, integral secret.
Dorothée Janin-Goldman
The artists
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Aline Diépois and Thomas Gizolme a french-swiss couple live and work together in Paris. Photographers, they share their time between comissioned and personal projects. Their first book “Dust Book” is released by STEIDL in 2010 {Silver German Photobook Award}. “Abstrakt Zermatt” will be out at STEIDL in 2012.
The book
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"Abstrakt Zermatt"
Photography by Aline Diépois & Thomas Gizolme
Book design by Aline Diépois and Thomas Gizolme
Colour and b/w plates throughout
88 pages
23 cm x 30 cm
Clothbound hardcover with dust jacket
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—
In the valleys, from the high summits that surround Zermatt, the gigantic movement of the glacier is frozen, like an irreversible snapshot. Trompe-l’œil and capture, seizure of time, suspended guide-lines. Here Alemannic Switzerland is at its highest point of accomplishment, in the heart of nature displayed in carefully handled emptiness. Cars are forbidden, the little trains are electric, and on the paths to the Alps, in the depths of the forest, wooden bins have been positioned in order for walkers to dispose the excrements of their dogs. A decor that inspires respect and orders us to blend in. The photographs of Aline Diépois and Thomas Gizolme have been won over by this established state of things, and, stepping towards subtraction, they let texture follow its own course – cycles, mutation and solitary accidents are imprinted throughout the seasons. In Zermatt, the seasons pass one after the other, but have no power over a history that has fallen to pieces. Both the descriptive and the recital shrink and disappear; traces of things remain, premises, autonomous impressions, blots of shadow, marks in the snow that are received and recorded by a gesture similar to work on tracing paper. The rare human silhouettes and colour are incorporated into this immobile flux like annexes to the autarkic oxygen of Zermatt as a place. Scales of things have to be forgotten in order for the landscape to be abolished and for the shock between the colossal and the minuscule to draw its patterns and produce its effect. The imprint of plants appears to be mineral and gigantic, the summits and perspectives are turned upside down, the immobility of stone and ice resembles a fossilized tumult, a flow of ages. The almost total effacing of intention in these photographs lets other things appear – as if by imposition – in the glacial mist or the pastel intoxicated by altitude: a form of nature in which texture and matter take on the aspect of puzzles, fractals, the interweaving of crystals and of gypsum. Time and subject are diffracted; the existence of things takes form like a chemical sublimate. These ups and downs of mute logic and unthought-of mirror-games have laid down their principles for the composition of a book, reinforcing this choice by using over-aged rolls of film whose texture, matured by the coldness of wintry mountains, has worked alone, with its specifically intimate process. Since the image has been captured in this form of withdrawal, its pictorial force comes across as a natural element: a contemplated, integral secret.
Dorothée Janin-Goldman
The artists
—
Aline Diépois and Thomas Gizolme a french-swiss couple live and work together in Paris. Photographers, they share their time between comissioned and personal projects. Their first book “Dust Book” is released by STEIDL in 2010 {Silver German Photobook Award}. “Abstrakt Zermatt” will be out at STEIDL in 2012.
The book
—
"Abstrakt Zermatt"
Photography by Aline Diépois & Thomas Gizolme
Book design by Aline Diépois and Thomas Gizolme
Colour and b/w plates throughout
88 pages
23 cm x 30 cm
Clothbound hardcover with dust jacket
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