Benoît Jeannet

Benoît Jeannet lives and works in Neuchâtel Switzerland. He graduated from the photography department of the Lausanne School of Art and Design / ECAL ( Switzerland) and the Photography School of Vevey / CEPV  (Switzerland). Benoît has presented his work in several solo and group exhibitions since 2011, and won the first Focale – Ville de Nyon award in 2012 and the Photo Forum Pas Quart Award in 2015.

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A Geological Index Of The Landscape is inspired from Anne Cauquelin’s concept. According to her, landscape is an invention that only exists through representation. This project is built on the tension between emotions and rationalism and on man’s frenetic need to make the world fits his scale in order to make it his own.

The poetry of the discovery of the world and its landscapes is confronted to the processes of scientific investigation.

It is indeed a typological approach that gives the illusion of completeness and systematism of physical and inanimated elements constituting the landscape. But the academic dryness of the title is an irony reminding us that encyclopedic fantasies are as useless as attractive.

A Geological Index Of The Landscape brings a critical dimension: it recalls once more that photographs and pictures are devouring us daily. They are visual phrases whose signification we don’t understand because they are overflowing us. This is why we are trying to categorize it, in order to give a sense and a shape to this flow.

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My work mixes types and languages. The project presents pictures of the landscape collected during travels across the world. It also presents geological fragments, as visual samples and studio reconstitutions of elements composing the landscape.

I have taken and assembled those pictures by thinking of a perpetual quest. From a question arises an answer from which derives a reflection, and so one. Every quest is supposed to lead to a conclusion. The appeal of A Geological Index Of The Landscape stands in its gaps and the illusion of a potential completeness.

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A geological index of the landscape is a typological approach, presented in a form that gives the illusion of completeness of the elements that make up landscape.
Poetry and beautiful picture care face, beyond him, the human need to appropriate the world, by classification and reconstitution of elements.

The title is a trait of irony, suggesting that the photographer reminds us : encyclopedic fantasies are as vain as they are seductive. The absurd is there, between the images in this index and descriptions, obscure and dry. The photographs taken in the studio simplify to the maximum the elements shown, and push extravagance to a higher level : sand, pebble or vapor clouds turn into complete tricks and remind us what great and wonderful lie photography is.

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To view more of Benoît’s work, please visit his website.