L'encyclopédie en images, Batia Suter
Batia Suter, Radial Grammar, 2018
Radial Grammar was created by Batia Suter in 2018 on the occasion of her eponymous exhibition at Le Bal in Paris, from May 25 till August 26, 2018. The imagery in this book, which revolves around radial shapes and concepts, also forms the basis of a video work in the exhibition. Specific for the book is the use of two separate layers of black ink, allowing Suter to create double images and to merge patterns and screens. Departing from pages scanned from her collection of second hand tomes - mainly concerning natural science, precision machinery and art history - Suter freely manipulates them and reorders them within the space of a book, which can be seen as a condensed exhibition on paper. The result is a journey along visual phenomena that reconnects us with the endless curiosity and patience of our younger selves leafing through an encyclopedia, unattended and unable to read, yet all the more sensitive to its inner visual rhymes and correspondences.
With a text by Henri Michaux from 1968.
Batia Suter's work intuitively situates found images in new contexts to provoke surprising reactions and significative possibilities. This volume follows on from the first Parallel Encyclopedia, published in 2007. Underlying themes of Suter's practice are the "iconification" and "immunogenicity" of old images, and the circumstances by which they become charged with new associative values. "In my work, I collect groups of images based on various themes and characteristics, and I investigate how they can manipulate each other, depending on where and how they are placed. In the process of making this book, narrative lines unfolded before my eyes as I shifted images around."
Painting, sculpture, murder scenes, film stills, x-rays, people praying, people squinting, areal views of crops, areal views of cities, and hundreds of other photographs and illustrations are composed in such a way as to suggest a cinematic sequence of images.
Batia Suter, Parallel Encyclopedia, 2016
Batia Suter's work intuitively situates found images in new contexts to provoke surprising reactions and significative possibilities. This volume follows on from the first Parallel Encyclopedia, published in 2007. Underlying themes of Suter's practice are the "iconification" and "immunogenicity" of old images, and the circumstances by which they become charged with new associative values. "In my work, I collect groups of images based on various themes and characteristics, and I investigate how they can manipulate each other, depending on where and how they are placed. In the process of making this book, narrative lines unfolded before my eyes as I shifted images around."
Design: Roger Willems.
'Parallel Encyclopedia #2 Extended' / 2018
Inkjet on Digiwall, nails / Installation views 'Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize 2018'
The Photographers' Gallery, London GB
