Séduction

Cyril Porchet – Séduction

“In this work, I photographed Baroque-style churches in Germany, Austria and Spain according to criteria of architectural rhetoric. I selected these churches according to their exuberance, as well as the arrangement and level of saturation of their ornamentation, composed of decorative, figurative and symbolic elements. I photographed these places of worship in such a way as to produce an effect of visual saturation and a certain degree of abstraction in my images, with the intention that the viewer should first lose his or her visual bearings, and then be able to perceive the different elements that make them up. I have sought to compress the three-dimensionality of these churches into the picture plane, in order to better manifest the trompe-l'oeil of the Baroque, so that all the architecture merges with the painting. This flattening out of Baroque exuberance and excess serves as an elliptical critique of the contemporary society of spectacle. In the accumulation of spectacle(s) in today's culture, the world is in constant representation, and desires are channeled into images. By choosing the baroque as a metaphor for spectacle, my images also function as a reminder that the spectacular regime of images is in fact a historical given.“

“ I photographed these cultural places in order to produce an effect of visual saturation. This profligacy of splendor contributes to stun the senses and at first glance provides an effect which tends toward abstraction. The optical flatness produced by the camera looks like and references the “trompe l’oeil” technique often used in this type of architecture. The goal of this approach is to show in an analytical way the exuberance and the surfeit of baroque as a critical shortcut of the dramatic character of our current society...”

Cyril Porchet