Laxalt Photography

STATEMENT

“There’s a crack in everything, That’s how the light gets in.”(Léonard Cohen, “Anthem”). Yes, I believe in the cracks in the mask of everyday life. There are these spaces, these unnoticed moments through which light, beauty manifests itself, coming from another world, beautiful or ugly, hidden, but omnipresent. 

When this miracle is accomplished, everyone can perceive the vibration of an emotion, the possibility of artistic balance, an open door to the marvelous. By freeing our perception of the world, everyone can discover the Art that surrounds us, in a smile, a ray of sunshine, in a mold or a stain of mud. For me, it is Art accessible to all, popular Art, Art which precedes concepts, Art which touches the soul, by surprise. 

My project consists of photographing these artistic flaws to bring them up above the control of consciousness and thus reveal the marvelous and harmonious which lives hidden in the folds of our material lives. 

“If you look at walls stained with stains, or made of different stones, with the idea of imagining some scene, you will see the analogy of landscapes decorated with mountains, rivers, rocks, trees, wide valleys and hills of all kinds.” Leonardo Da Vinci – Treatise on painting - 1651.

While Leonardo Da Vinci gave this advice to his students lacking inspiration, the renewal of artistic thought at the turn of the 20th century modified its meaning. The “you” which, for the surrealists still, designates the creator, in the fifties, also came to designate the spectator, Leonardo's advice no longer proposed a device of invention, but also a process of reception. 

In M.Y.O.P.E., these hills, these mountains, these forests, these valleys, these landscapes of all kinds exist…. since you saw them. The wall here takes an additional dimension by first becoming the support of artwork, a figurative representation of a dreamed imagination. But quickly flaws in perception appear, in the form of cracks, stains, fissures which then invite the viewer to another form of journey. An inner journey. Because the wall pierces beneath the landscape. The wall as subject, as object. This wall which has become the structure, the guide and the jailer of our urban lives.

But what a relief in the end to realize that imagination and poetry grow naturally on these walls, which become less oppressive. Here, no human intervention, no graffiti. What joy that the artist's gaze reveals to us that these spots can become hills, this mold can become cypress trees, this mud can become a desert island, this humidity can become an oriental forest, etc. 

By carefully choosing the frame from the daily banality of the wall, the photographer becomes an alchemist by transmuting the dirty, the ugly, into an “Invitation to travel”. No macro photography here, each of these “landscapes” really exists on the wall, in large format. But the passerby no longer looks at the walls. He became myopic. He runs and forgets the essentials. 

The artist then has a vital role as André Pieyre de Mandiargues recalled:“It doesn’t just show. His greatest benefit, since prehistoric times, is that having known how to look, he teaches it to other men. However, it happens quite frequently now (it happens to me) to stop in front of a vacant lot fence, the facade of a dilapidated factory, the side of a ship eaten away by rust, with as much pleasure, or more , that our fathers before the landscape of the Matterhorn or that of the cliffs of Étretat” (in Le Belvédère, 1958).

With M.Y.O.P.E., I want to keep my eyes open for wonder. Watch and share. Extend the dream and re-enchant the world.