Artist: Jochen Lempert
Exhibition title: Sea Level
Venue: Feuilleton, Los Angeles, US
Date: September 9 – October 7, 2020
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Feuilleton, Los Angeles
Feuilleton is pleased to present a solo exhibition of the German, Hamburg-based artist Jochen Lempert.
Jochen Lempert’s black-and-white analog photographs examine the relationship between the human animal and the natural world. Vexing the Cartesian distinction between nature and culture, Lempert’s work richly explores the myriad interrelated links between the two. Whether through comparative mimesis, cohabitation or western aesthetics largely codified by the renaissance and modernism, his photos consider how nature and culture are in constant dialogue, co-evolving and overlapping, not to mention coexisting. Although political, Lempert’s work is far from utopian. It does not necessarily dream of an Edenic return to nature; if anything it is marked by a sober melancholy, arising from our obvious inability to move beyond the anthropocentric gaze.
For Lempert’s exhibition at Feuilleton, his first in Los Angeles, the artist has gathered together a selection of works which address the sea shore and the vicissitudes, forms, interrelation with human beings and the lunar cycles of the moon of which it may be composed. All the stakes of his practice are in play here. From how the fall of a bather’s wet hair parallels a draping cluster of kelp, to how a bird’s eye view of surf flowing up a beach is formally evocative of a mid-century abstraction, this focused selection addresses the sprawling complexity of Lempert’s core interests through a relatively limited theme. Additionally, the work’s material character, as printed photographs which the artist always presents unframed directly on the wall, and its ostensible relation to drawing are intentionally foregrounded in a context dedicated to showing work on paper.
Jochen Lempert (b. Moers, Germany, 1958) lives and works in Hamburg. A selection of recent solo exhibitions includes (2020) Phenotype, CAC Vilnius, Lithuania; Jardin d ’ Hiver, Le Crédac, Centre d’Art Contemporain d’Ivry, Ivry.sur-Seine, France (2019) Jochen Lempert, BQ Gallery, Berlin, Germany; Jochen Lempert Fotos an Büchern, Camera Austria, Graz, Austria; Jochen Lempert, Capri, Düsseldorf, Germany (2018) Predicted Autumn, Musée départemental d’art contemporain de Rochechouart, France; Sudden Spring, Bildmuseet, Umea University, Umea, Sweden; Jochen Lempert, CA2M, Centro de Arte dos de Mayo, Madrid, Spain; Some Plant Volatiles, Kunsthaus Wien, Vienna; Austria Botanical Box, French Pavillon, Zagreb, Croatia; Phasmes, Institut de Carton, Brussels, Belgium; Two Poems, Some Pairs, Mutina for Art, Fiorano, Modena, Italy. A selection of recent group exhibitions includes: (2020) Pictures from Another Wall, De Pont Museum, Tilburg, The Netherlands (2019) Mercury, Tallinn Art Hall, Tallinn, Estonia; Worlds in Motion. Collection presentation, Mudam Luxembourg – Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg; Ganar Perdiendo, CentroCentro, Madrid, Spain; What they call my shadow here on earth is my true substance, CACBM, Paris, France; Antipasti, Sauvage, Bonn, Germany; Phenomenon III, Phenomenon, Anafi, Greece; One Minute, One Hour, One Month… One Million Years, The Island Club, Cyprus; Super Erotic Group Show, 8. Salon, Hamburg, Germany; Von Pflanzen und Menschen, Deutsche Hygiene-Museum Dresden, Dresden, Germany; City Prince/sses Dhaka, Lagos, Manila, Mexico City and Tehran, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France.
He is represented by ProjecteSD, Barcelona and BQ Gallery, Berlin.
Jochen Lempert, Sea Level, 2020, exhibition view, Feuilleton, Los Angeles
Jochen Lempert, Sea Level, 2020, exhibition view, Feuilleton, Los Angeles
Jochen Lempert, Sea Level, 2020, exhibition view, Feuilleton, Los Angeles
Jochen Lempert, Sea Level, 2020, exhibition view, Feuilleton, Los Angeles
Jochen Lempert, Sea Level, 2020, exhibition view, Feuilleton, Los Angeles
Jochen Lempert, Sea Level, 2020, exhibition view, Feuilleton, Los Angeles
Jochen Lempert, Sea Level, 2020, exhibition view, Feuilleton, Los Angeles
Jochen Lempert, Sea Level, 2020, exhibition view, Feuilleton, Los Angeles
Jochen Lempert, Sea Level, 2020, exhibition view, Feuilleton, Los Angeles
Jochen Lempert, Sea Level, 2020, exhibition view, Feuilleton, Los Angeles
Jochen Lempert, Sea Level, 2020, exhibition view, Feuilleton, Los Angeles
Jochen Lempert, Sea Level, 2020, exhibition view, Feuilleton, Los Angeles
Jochen Lempert, Sea Level, 2020, exhibition view, Feuilleton, Los Angeles
Jochen Lempert, Sea Level, 2020, exhibition view, Feuilleton, Los Angeles
Jochen Lempert, Sea Level, 2020, exhibition view, Feuilleton, Los Angeles
Jochen Lempert, Sea Level, 2020, exhibition view, Feuilleton, Los Angeles
Jochen Lempert, Sea Level, 2020, exhibition view, Feuilleton, Los Angeles
Jochen Lempert, Sea Level, 2020, exhibition view, Feuilleton, Los Angeles
Jochen Lempert, Sea Level, 2020, exhibition view, Feuilleton, Los Angeles
Jochen Lempert, Untitled (Atlantic Ocean), 2019. Set of four photographs, silver gelatin prints, 9.25 x 6 in each (23.5 x 15.5 cm each)
Jochen Lempert, Untitled, 2020. Silver gelatin print, 8.3 x 6 in (21 x 15 cm)
Jochen Lempert, Untitled (Botany Bay), 2019. Silver gelatin print, 8.7 x 6.7 in (22 x 17 cm)
Jochen Lempert, Untitled, 2020. Silver gelatin print, 11.4 x 9 in (29 x 23 cm)
Jochen Lempert, Full Moon, 2020. Silver gelatin print, 14.8 x 11.2 in (37.5 x 28.5 cm)
Jochen Lempert, Sand, 2020. Silver gelatin print, 11.8 x 15.7 in (30 x 40 cm)
Jochen Lempert, Untitled (Beetle/Hand), 2020. Silver gelatin print, 7.5 x 10.2 in (19 x 26 cm)