Dream City

In his previous work – Topiques – Gérard Pétremand gave us a vision of the urban peripheries of our routine existence in the style of mock-ups. This time, he leads us into the tortuous streets of imaginary towns which he has detected in the fortuitous assemblage of all kinds of materials encountered on building sites, on dumps or in places of transit, in such a way that we do not know whether we are witnessing an act of creation or elimination.

Playing on the scale of perception of objects and places, he gives us the illusion of perceiving whole metropolises spread out over a few square metres.

The unconventional distribution of blurred and distinct forms, without reference to plans, heightens the illusion of real cities and gives the spectator the impression of being familiar with these places of memory or towns perceived in a dream…

The universe of dreams is strengthened by the selective use of colours in which the dominant whites and greens are emblematic of a duel between built-up space and nature.

This is yet another work in which Gérard Pétremand questions the veracity of our perceptions and the extent to which they can be transcribed through photography.

Pascale Lorenz

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