SCHMITZ – LUND
Having chosen to be a photographer to « capture beauty », Helene Schmitz thus suggests the fragility, the ephemeral and almost ambiguous dimension of beauty. The main subject matter in her work is Nature, often equated with a form of Paradise by Western tradition: a huge magnificent garden; a state of innocence, peace and gentleness. The reality is of course completely different. Nature has neither feeling nor intention; its only agenda is survival and expansion… Mankind admires its aesthetic beauty and finds comfort in it but also tries to conquer, exploit and organize Nature to counteract this chaos and its movement.
O R D E R A N D D O M I N A T I O N - C H A O S A N D E X P A N S I O N
Since Livingrooms (1996), a deeply personal testimony of her childhood apartment destroyed by fire, Helene Schmitz has developed a body of work in which the theme of the relationship between mankind, Nature, the elements and climate is the guiding thread. She explores and questions the portrait of Nature drafted by science, art and literature: Sunken Gardens (2010), an enigmatic photographic ensemble in a submarine atmosphere taken in the hot and humid environment of the Surinam jungle show a human enterprise – enclosures for butterfly breeding – on the verge of getting absorbed by overwhelming vegetation. This invasive vegetation also lies at the heart of the Kudzu project (2013), a series that Helene Schmitz dedicated to Kudzu – a sort of ivy that grows at a terrifying speed and suffocates everything in the Southern States of America where mankind made the choice of planting it before realizing its mistake.
E A R T H W O R K S
Earthworks (2015) and The Forest (2016), her most recent photographs featured in her third exhibition at the GALERIE MARIA LUND deal with human colonization: Earthworks shows the traces of an unsuccessful commercial endeavor when Namibia was under German domination. At the end of the 19th century, in order to develop mining, the colonial power built Kolmanskop, an entire town with its houses, shops and church. The commercial ambition failed; the city was abandoned, left to the desert. Since then, sand has taken over buildings transforming them little by little into ”hourglasses” that keep filling up. The tranquility of the sandbanks contrasts with the decoration of the ornamented faded colour walls; doors open on other rooms and more sand. The spaces are illuminated by a strong, penetrating sunlight… Soon, there will be only sand but in the meantime, the meeting between the sand matter brought by wind, the tracks left by the snakes that live there and the remains of human effort to bring beauty to life shows a very powerful image of Man’s ambition faced with Nature’s reality.
The desire to exploit Nature is also at the origins of the incident – a spark – that provoked the biggest forest fire in more than half a century in Sweden: in 2014, the fire dispersed on more than 14000 hectares in Västmanländ. In The Forest, Helene Schmitz has photographed the aftermath. For two years she went there to show the blackened landscape where the regular rhythm of planted trees is disturbed by the trees that have fallen or those consumed by the fire. The series show a devastated Nature as well as its slow coming back to life alongside the return of colours. In a context where mankind’s relationship to its environment is more than ever a central issue, this ensemble offers a silent and strong testimony.
F I C T I O N A N D R E A L I T Y
The frontal nature of Helene Schmitz’s photographs, built around a central axis, confers to the photographed space a scenic dimension. The artist thus manages to install a tension between reality and fiction. Mankind is always physically absent from the images but his existence and his action potential inhabit them.
B E A U T Y A N D R E A L I T Y
If Helene Schmitz’s photographs strike at first because of the perfect beauty that defines them, the intention of the artist goes far beyond: their great beauty also holds its captivating vibration from suggesting the immanence of destructive powers, or even show the traces of them. In the face of Nature, the attempts of Man domination often fail on the short or long term.
B A C K G R O U N D
Helene Schmitz (born in 1960) is a Swedish photographer currently living and working in Stockholm. She graduated from the University of Stockholm in art history and cinema and regularly exhibits in galleries and institutions, mostly in Sweden but also in France, the United States and Norway. Outside of her home country, her work has been shown in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, the Château de Chaumont sur Loire, in the context of Transphotographiques in Lille, the Prague National Museum, the Stockholm National Natural History Museum and the Tokyo National Science Museum and in Sweden at the Moderna Museet, Stockholm at the Abecita Konstmuseum and at the Kristinehamns Konstmuseum. In 2015 Dunkers kulturhus, Helsingborg, Sweden presented her retrospective exhibition Borderlands. Helene Schmitz’s works have entered the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Stockholm, the National Public Art Council (Sweden), the Cultural Department of Stockholm County Council and the Oslo Municipality, Norway.
Helene Schmitz has also received public commissions: the creation of a stamp for the Swedish national mail (2015), an ensemble of photographs for the metro station Mariatorget, Stockholm (2013-2015) and a commission for the Karolinska hospital (2010).
Part of her activity is dedicated to the publication of books: A passion for Systems (System och passion – Linné och drömmen om Naturens Ordning, 2007) was rewarded in Sweden by the Royal Library and the Publishing Prize. The book From the Shade of the rainforest – Daniel Rolander and the journey to Surinam (Ur Regnskogens Skugga – Daniel Rolander och resan till Surinam, 2011) was nominated for Swedens most prestigious literary prize, the Augustprize.