A conceptualist who utilizes a variety of mediums, Laurence Aëgerter cleverly employed photography to appropriate and revitalize iconic paintings on view at the Hermitage Amsterdam during the 2010 exhibition Matisse to Malevich: Pioneers of Modern Art from the Hermitage. The French-born, Amsterdam-based artist positioned people and objects in front of modernist masterpieces and then snapped pictures of the resulting tableaux. Coming full circle, her colorful images are now being shown in the exhibition The Modernists and More, which is on view at the Hermitage Amsterdam through February 20th. Whitehot contributor Paul Laster recently connected with the artist to discuss the ideas and process behind this engaging series of images.
Paul Laster: What was the idea for the making of your photographic series Hermitage, The Modernists, which is currently on view at the Hermitage Amsterdam?
Laurence Aëgerter: I wanted to investigate our individual relation to art and our perception of iconic artworks. The more the icon is alive in our mind—by means of reproductions and stories around it—the higher is the intensity of the expectation to be confronted with its reality. But what can we really experience of it? When our vision of a work of art is altered, it becomes a reversed mirror—anchored in our present time. By layering the images, I seek the in-between spaces and bits of time that occur in the process of looking.
Laster: Were the photographs staged or taken by chance?
Aëgerter: They were all staged. For privacy and security reasons, I wasn't allowed to photograph during opening hours. I had to get permission. I know the marketing director, who already knew about my work, and he gave me a carte blanche.
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