Lot 88: NICOLAS FAURE

N° 160 - A
Signed, titled, dated and numbered 4/5 in ink on a label affixed to the reverse of the frame. One from an edition of 5 plus 2 artist's proofs.

125 x 160 cm (49 1/4 x 63 in).

Lambda print, flush-mounted and printed later.

1997

Lausanne, Musée de l'Elysée, Nicolas Faure: Landscape A, 17 November 2005 - 5 February 2006 (another example exhibited)

Exhibition catalogue, Musée de l'Elysée, Nicolas Faure: Landscape A, Lausanne, 2005, p. 57

Acquired directly from the artist

The Utopic, illusion-inducing artificial gardens that Nicolas Faure has discovered along Switzerland's highways can only be seen from a distance. They are invisible to those in passing vehicles because of the speed at which the vehicles are travelling. Nor do the gardens reveal themselves to pedestrians - the spaces are for the most part enclosed and in anu case off-bounds. These 'compensation zones', created to diminish the effects of the wide-spread use of concrete, usually border on the highways directly. Faure's photographs make it possible not only to see differently; they take a new look at landscape, showing a form of beauty in no way nostalgic and yet central to modern concerns, including ecological ones. His images also make it possible to understand the bond that man - or, more prosaically, the federal administration - has to mature, or at least to the idea of it. (Exhibition catalogue, Musée de l'Elysée, Nicolas Faure: Landscape A, Lausanne, 2005, p. 6)
Another example of this work is held in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Musée de l'Elysée, Lausanne and Pictet Bank Collection