Hélène Binet: Dialoghi, works from 1988 to 2018

Schedule

Exhibition: Hélène Binet: Dialoghi, Works from 1988 to 2018
Date: April 19–July 21, 2019
Venue: 3F, Power Station of Arts, Shanghai

Lecture: Building Images: Hélène Binet and the Question of Contemporary Architectural Photography
Panelists: Hélène Binet, Hubertus Adam, Chen Hao
Date: June 22, 2019, 14:00-16:00
Venue: 3F, Power Station of Arts, Shanghai

Supported by Pro Helvetia Shanghai, Swiss Arts Council

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Shanghai’s Power Station of Art will present French-Swiss photographer Hélène Binet’s first solo institutional exhibition in China. The exhibition brings together several iconic career highlights and offers a comprehensive overview of Binet’s 30-year professional career, as well as featuring her new Suzhou Gardens series commissioned for this exhibition, presenting over 100 works in total. This exhibition will also be accompanied by the first monograph on Binet to be published in Chinese. Dialoghi (Dialogue) aims to open up a new standpoint for viewers to approach architecture through the abstract emotion of photography.

Born in Sorengo of Switzerland in 1959, Hélène Binet grew up in Rome, Italy. Most of Binet’s photographic works focus on European modern and postmodern architecture, while recently starting to develop an interest in natural landscapes and classic Asian architecture.

Hélène Binet, Le Corbusier, Eglise Saint-Pierre, Firminy, France，2007，hand printed b/w silver gelatin，50×60cm. Courtesy of the artist & Ammann Gallery.

Hélène Binet, Peter Zumthor, Bruder Klaus Kapelle, Mechernich, Germany，2009，digital b/w silver gelatin，80×102cm. Courtesy of the artist & Ammann Gallery.

Hélène Binet, Paysages en Poésie, Alpes of Vaud, Switzerland，2004，digital b/w silver gelatin，80×80cm. Courtesy of the artist & Ammann Gallery.

Hélène Binet, Humble Administrator’s Garden, Suzhou Gardens, China，2018，digital C-Type print，80×102cm. Courtesy of the artist & Ammann Gallery.

The exhibition will look back at Binet’s 30-year career by showcasing her depictions of iconic works by acclaimed architects including Le Corbusier, Peter Zumthor and Zaha Hadid. By emphasizing the echo between architect and architect or between architect and landscape, Binet divides her works from different series into groups of two or three to form “dialogues” featuring varying themes. For example, when documenting the Jantar Mantar Observatory in Jaipur of India, and the Convent of Sainte-Marie de La Tourette designed by Le Corbusier, she focused the lens on the sharp contrast between light and shadow formed on building façades to cross-examine the line of difference between divinity and scientific limits; whereas at the other end of the showroom, the ever-extending curves of Zaha Hadid’s signature works highlighted by Binet deliver echoing effects against the boundless Atacama Desert and Swiss mountain views, where lurks a primitive force that promotes the formation of surface structures.