Christophe Guye Galerie is pleased to announce the third solo exhibition by Swiss artist Brigitte Lustenberger (*1969). This online exhibition in our virtual gallery features a selection of works from her newly published book ‘An Apparition of Memory’.
Brigitte Lustenberger explores themes of memory, time's passage, and life's fragility. Using dried flowers on slide glass, she crafts delicate and captivating photographs, celebrating the beauty of decay and revealing nature's intricate designs. Under a shroud of chalk and salt crystals, the flowers seem to be preserved for eternity and, for a moment, it seems time can be stopped by encapsulating the beauty and frailness of life. The artist's work effortlessly blends light drawing's transient nature with the preserving nature of photography, capturing a profound essence.
'The almost decomposing flower petals in the series An Apparition of Memory mean that the viewer of ephemeral nature is faced with the impossibility, even through the use of photography, of capturing or stopping time. Thanks to the light, her photographs are enveloped in a shroud of mystery and allow the imagination of the spectator to run free: they suggest different scenarios; brimming with light, wavering between life and death, they try to hold on to the present, but reveal a past that liberates the imagination, anticipating the future.' – from 'An Apparition of Memory: The Fragile Balance of Living Things' by Chiara Agradi
Brigitte Lustenberger studied Photo Theory and History at Zurich University and Fine Art Photography at Parsons The New School of Design in New York. She has shown nationally and internationally in both solo and group shows. She had solo shows at the Museée de l’Elysée in Lausanne/Switzerland, at Walter Keller’s Scalo Gallery in Zurich and New York, at Le Maillon in Strasbourg/France, Kunstkeller Gallery in Bern, Photoforum PasquArt in Bienne. Her works have been part of group shows in the Kunsthalle Bern, Kunsthalle Luzern, Art Cologne, Centro Internationale de Fotografia in Milan. She was awarded the Grand Prize Winner PDNedu, the Golden Light Award, Shots/Corbis Student Photographer of the Year, Prix de Photoforum PasquArt, The Photo Review Comeptition, Selection Voies Off at Arles, and others. She received fellowships for Cairo and Maloja and was awarded with the prestigious swiss Landis&Gyr Residency in 2013. In the same year she was awarded for the second time (after 2002) the Photo Award of the Canton Bern.
Book signing and artist talk
On Wednesday, 24 January 2024, from 17:30 to 19:00, a book signing of her new publication 'An Apparition of Memory' by Hatje Cantz Verlag and an artist talk with Brian Paul Lamotte (independent graphic designer and publisher specialising in art and photography books) will take place in the gallery.
