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HUGUES Bertrand, Photography, guest artist, La fabrique des éléments

Bertrand Hugues employs photography at a specific stage of his artistic work not as an end in and of itself, but as one means among several to question what it really means to see. Dismantling the laws of Nature, he manipulates those of photography too; for his aim is not to create images, but quite the opposite - to counter them. What he accomplishes in his studio with his view camera and the hybrids he creates undoes the accepted modalities of our vision.

And there it could very well end, except that for Hugues - the inventor of forms - the exhilaration of the entire experience would not be complete were he not to do one last, purposely indirect, thing: he sends the Ekta film produced in the studio to Atelier Fresson for printing using that firm’s Fresson process. Invented at the end of
the nineteenth century, the charcoal paper printing technique was improved in the 1950s when it went from monochrome to four colour printing. It offers Bertrand Hugues two additional possibilities that contribute to giving his work its final form.

(...) Fresh yet dried: what better oxymoron to illustrate what it is we are seeing here, namely a way, as Baudelaire would put it to «surpass nature» so as to confer upon the living a deliberately artificial form of eternity. And it becomes clear too why Bertrand Hugues discards his hybrids, why he prefers those last delegated prints to them, for those are the true locus of his art: the lived experience forever suspended in time.

Pierre Wat extract from the text “second nature” - 2020

Exhibitions

2025 La fabrique des éléments, Capazza gallery, Nançay, FR

2023 Galerie Surface active, Abbaye Royale de Fontevraud, FR

2022 Ce que dit la bouche d'ombre, curated by Yves Sabourin, Espace Dupuis, Paris, FR
Group show: Crozat, Hugues, Mougas, Rials, Vever, Voillat, Galerie Eric Mouchet, Bruxelles, BE
Galerie Univer Paris, FR

2021 Approche Art Fair, Galerie Eric Mouchet, Paris, FR

2020 “Seconde Nature, Jacques Blin & Bertrand Hugues”, Galerie Eric Mouchet, Paris, FR

2019 “Herbiers imaginaires”, Galerie Univer, Paris, FR
“Rêves d'herbier”, solo show, Galerie Parallax, Aix en Provence, FR

2017 Brafa Art Fair, Aktis Gallery, Brussels, BE

2016 “30 ans”, group show, Galerie Berthet-Aittouares, Paris, FR

2015 Art Itinérance, solo show, Conseil Départemental d'Eure et Loir - Chartres (catalog), FR
“Bertrand Hugues Photographies”, solo show, Galerie Berthet-Aittouares, Paris, FR
“Carte blanche à Bertrand Hugues”, Galerie Sabine Puget, Paris, FR

2014 "Nouvelles affinités électives. Bertrand Hugues & François Weil, Galerie Sabine Puget, Paris, FR

2013 Brafa, Galerie Aktis, Bruxelles (catalog), BE
“Imagine, l'eau” Galerie Berthet-Aittouares, Paris, FR
“Charlotte Norberg invite” Galerie Brun Leglise, Paris, FR

2012 Masterpiece London, Galerie Aktis, Paris, FR
“A propos d'affinités électives” Bertrand Hugues & François Weil, Galerie Sabine Puget (catalog), Paris, FR 2011
Group show, Galerie Berthet-Aittouares, Paris, FR

2009 Group show, Galerie Berthet-Aittouares, Paris, FR

2008 “Spring” group show, carte blanche with Françoise Monnin, Galerie Sellem, Paris, FR
“Petits Formats” group show, Galerie Charlotte Norberg, Paris, FR

2007 Art Paris, Galerie Berthet-Aittouares, Paris, FR

2006 Triptyque Art Fair, Galerie Berthet-Aittouares, Angers, FR

2005 Group show, Galerie Berthet-Aittouares, Paris, FR

2004 Art Paris, Galerie Berthet-Aittouares, Paris, FR

2003 “Différente Nature” group show, Oyonnax, FR “Chamans” group show, Choisy le Roi, FR

2002 Solo exhibition at Galerie Eye-See, Brussels, BE
“Histoires Naturelles” Natural History Museum, Paris, FR Prix de la photographie

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