Oliver Clément. Permanent Present / Prospection on surroundings

looksLikeTheSea

untitled (“looks like the sea” after Fellini, athletics reception mat), 2014

helixPalmier

untitled (helix, houseplant), 2013

cloudWindow

untitled (cloud, window), 2014

mesh

untitled (mesh, trampoline net), 2014

lampPost

untitled (lamp post), 2014

mailBox

untitled (mailbox), 2013

netz

untitled (spinnennetz), 2013

all images from the series Permanent Present

© OLIVER CLEMENT

Permanent Present is photographic series by OLIVER CLÉMENT (1978)  –  a former engineer in the field of biomedical research who finally graduated from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie d’Arles in 2009  –  that hovers on the boundary between the familiar and the strange, where something doesn’t feel right, or where something doesn’t look like what it seems to be, thanks to the precise compositions and the distinct look of OLIVER.

I focused my attention on non-spectacular and modest events standing at the fringe of modernity which can be seen as objects, things and states of affairs directly prehensile by my vision. Things that in the past could embody possible future and which are today unfinished. Through images that flirt with virtuality and abstraction, I’m trying to restore fragments of discrete expired utopias and to regard some blind spots of modernity. – OLIVER CLÉMENT

The a-temporal and dreamlike quality as well as the multiple narratives of his work reflect the conundrums of idealism and ideology of a past generation, and illustrate the development of the sediment of time, which does no longer coincide with the idea of velocity promoted by modernity but, on the contrary, it expresses the manifold time dimensions of progress.

➝ An edition of small prints from the series Permanent Present is currently on view at Castelcoucou in Forbach, France until the end of October.



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