The Galerie Maubert presents an exhibition ofIrmel Kamp : Portraits d’architectures. Frank Balland écrit :
Since the end of the seventies, Irmel Kamp (1937, Düsseldorf) has been photographing architecture. His shots are characterized by a certain distancing of the object, shown as a whole, as if it were apprehended by a human gaze during a stroll. Without seeking to emphasize the volumes or shapes specific to each construction, but with the constant concern to make them appear in the environment which welcomes them1, these sober compositions, always in black and white and dominated by an invariably gray sky, constitutes a valuable resource on modern architecture in Europe and the Middle East – where she has notably photographed more than 650 buildings in the White City in Tel Aviv.
The precise approach that Irmel Kamp developed for these constructions, all previously studied and retained for their own characteristics, does not, however, place this work in a typological research similar to that, in particular, of Bernd and Hilla Becher. The photographer, from a family of architects and scientists – and who, due to lack of means, turned to metallography rather than architecture at the end of high school, before devoting herself fully to photography – on the contrary, pays particular attention to the most spontaneous human interventions, which signal the integration of buildings into a certain social or economic reality. Thus, these “architectural portraits”, as the exhibition at the Maubert gallery calls them, are not only the archive of localized architectural styles or their propagation, but a testimony to the attention paid to them in the different contexts where they arise.
The memorial dimension of these images, if it does not constitute a primordial issue in their production (we can more clearly discern a sensitive, and enlightened, approach to architectural constructions having influenced their environments) inevitably ends up asserting itself when it reveals vernacular traditions in danger of disappearing. The Zink series (1978-1982), the artist’s first major achievement, constitutes a remarkable example in this perspective. Irmel Camp
Irmel Kamp : Portraits d’architectures
Until December 7, 2024
Galerie Maubert
20 rue Saint-Gilles
75003 Paris
www.galeriemaubert.com
