One of the photos, presented without location or caption.
Patrick Gilliéron Lopreno.
It’s a UFO. “U-Turn” does not fall from the sky, however. This resolutely earthy book ends a trilogy undertaken with “Champs” in 2018. Everything will have finally gone very quickly, while photographers generally publish little, and especially very slowly. We can not say either that Patrick Gilliéron Lopreno works in the facility. The man asks as much of his readers as of himself. The current “U-Turn” thus synthesizes “ten years of images around confinement, loneliness and spirituality”, as he says in his afterword. Before the triptych, which completes his “Eloge de l’invisible”, there was indeed “Monasteries” or “Puzzle prison”. In other words, the subject becomes more refined over time, becoming both more general and more abstract.
“For the first time, I conceived this project as one would write a synopsis for a fiction film, while there is no staging on my part.”
I have spoken to you several times about Patrick’s work, which is very much on the fringes of the 8th art as it is generally practiced in our country. It’s not that the artist (because he really is one) leaves our regions for elsewhere. Quite the contrary! “Switzerland is my favorite territory for shooting.” But the approach is neither touristic, nor social, nor journalistic, nor aesthetic. It is with him to go beyond appearances, by erasing the characteristics of the place. “I always strive to erase all geography to remain only in pure suggestion.” The goal is not for the attentive viewer to recognize this or that place. On the contrary, it is necessary that the latter transcends the superficial aspect of things to enter into a coherent and meditated intellectual subject. With “U-Turn”, produced very quickly, Patrick Gilliéron Lopreno gives a visual pamphlet (a pamphlet normally goes quickly) “against the announced catastrophe”.
The work goes from dominant black to white.
Patrick Gilliéron Lopreno
This album was not built like the others. There remains of course the black and white, which passes here over the pages from the darkest to the lightest. The author wasn’t going to give up film so close to the goal. But contrary to what he had been doing up to now, he did not count on leaving tirelessly in search of unknown images which would become part of the future ensemble. “For the first time, I conceived this project as one would write a synopsis for a fiction film, while there is no staging on my part.” Everything was simply planned. It was therefore enough to return at the right time on the spot. “During my travels, I recorded my impressions and geolocation in a notebook.” Hence the effective three months I mentioned at the beginning. They constitute in fact the duration necessary for a materialization of images already in mind.
“I always strive to erase all geography to remain only in pure suggestion.”
Of course, a text was needed, strong, thick and concise. Patrick asked for it for the third time (which also underlined the continuity of the company) to Slobodan Despot, the Serbian writer now living in Valais. “He offered me ten very dense pages. They suited me perfectly because of their poetic power. I wanted the book “U-Turn”, radical in its layout, to remain classic in terms of words and images. Slobodan also brought a religious substrate, or at least spiritual, which came to give an additional direction to the work. “I saw in collaborating with him, who worked so long in Lausanne for the editions founded by Vladimir Dimitriević, a connection to the thought of the Age of Man.” It also seems permissible to see in it a manifesto. “We are between West and East, despite everything that is happening there today.”
Patrick Gilleron Lopreno.
Photographer’s website.
The form remained. The envelope. Or more precisely the model. There, the team could seem to have been in place for five years. “I knew that the graphics would be by Chris Gautschi and that all the images would be treated in photolithography by Patrick Schranz.” The latter was going to use the four-color process in order to achieve deeper blacks and creamier whites. “Hence the extreme importance of printing, which had to respect all the desired nuances.” It was entrusted, for what gives (which is becoming rare!) a pure Swiss product, to the Courvoiser-Gassmann house in Bienne. “We form by dint of collaborating a close-knit team. People automatically understand what other people want. And this even when they are not physically close.
A mask that fixes the image in time.
Patrick Gilliéron Lopreno.
One last word. This beautiful book, which also aims to be a beautiful object, has seen its circulation greatly limited compared to the first two volumes of the series. “There are only 200 numbered copies in all. This is the limit of profitability, of course, but we received financial assistance from the Jan Michalski Foundation. Another little wind from the East, even if the latter has had its roots firmly planted in the canton of Vaud for a long time. A guarantee of quality too. Unlike other entities, which in my opinion do a bit of social work, the Foundation only attaches its name to people and ideas in which it believes.
Practice
“U-Turn”, by Patrick Gilliéron Lopreno, text by Slobodan Despot, Editions Till Schaap. 96 pages.
You found an error?Please let us know.
Photographic book – Patrick Gilliéron Lopreno gives “U-Turn”
– Patrick Gilliéron Lopreno gives “U-Turn”
The album completes a triptych. It is a pamphlet against the announced catastrophe. The print run was limited to 200 copies.