Conscious that “in photography, defining the edges is a priority”, Aurélie Pétrel created the seminal work Chambre à Tokyo in 2011. Framed yet placed on the floor, resting on its edge, the photograph breaks free from the flatness of the wall to become a three-dimensional form, prompting the viewer to move physically around it. Sized like a bed, this double-sided photographic object reinterprets and reinforces the meticulously structured composition of the image it displays. With this piece, Pétrel lays the groundwork for a practice that questions her medium as much as it invites reflection on the world. This interplay between the space contained within the image, the space of the image itself, and the space surrounding it is a recurring focus in her work. These concerns crystallize in another iconic piece included in this exhibition : Minuit chez Roland, a glass labyrinth created in 2022 for the 16th Lyon Biennale of Contemporary Art.

Displaying photographs inherently involves materializing them. While making images tangible is intrinsic to the printing process, Aurélie Pétrel uses this necessity to subvert conventions that dictate photographs should be printed on smooth, white, rectangular paper. Instead, she methodically engages in a dialogue between the imagery she selects and the diverse forms and materiality of her mediums, causing the photographic image to stutter and challenging its traditional authority. Each exhibition becomes an opportunity to experiment with photography’s capacity for sensory engagement in space, breaking away from conventional methods of presentation. In doing so, Pétrel’s photographs often intrude into reality, as if they didn’t originate from it. They sometimes feel foreign to their own medium, taking the form of installations, sculptures, and occasionally paintings. This isn’t about pretending to be something they’re not; rather, the artist’s transformation of the medium is so profound it feels almost genetic.

In the first installment of this significant solo exhibition—which will continue on February 14 at the Le Corbusier Site in Firminy—Aurélie Pétrel extends the dialogue she began with the architect in her early 2010sw with her series Charte d’Athènes. Following a brief residency this past summer, she produced a series of photographs entitled Unité d’habitation, printed on white-prepped beechwood panels. This preparation preserves some of the image's original contrasts while softening the natural distortions caused by the wood. Only the texture of the beech’s grain is retained, creating an uncanny resemblance to the concrete depicted in the photographs, which bears the imprint of the wooden formwork used to mold it. In this reversal of textures, the concrete reveals the craft of the workers who produced it. Through this unexpected connection, this printing on wood suggests that the original formwork panels have resurfaced in a new guise.

Dormeur (Sleeper) is another striking series in the exhibition and stands out. The spatial presentation of photographic images, so characteristic of Pétrel’s practice, almost makes us forget that she is, first and foremost, a photographer—despite her active role in the “complete reprogramming of photography.” These Lambda prints, mounted on Dibond and framed, run counter to her more complex display methods she became known for. The series portrays numerous anonymous figures asleep in various public places. These individuals, on the cusp of waking, echo Pétrel’s PVL (Latent Photographic Views)—archived images stored in her “meuble jachère” (fallow cabinet), awaiting uncertain activation. These “stripped-down” images once again highlight Pétrel’s exceptional mastery of photographic language.

Meanwhile, her 2023 series Transition occupies the intersection of painting and photography, embodying the cross-disciplinary approach characteristic of her work. Created in Romme, where Pétrel has been based for years, this series revisits pictorialist experiments and stands out as a unicum—a unique object— in her body of work due to its unprecedented looseness and spontaneity. Here again, Aurélie Pétrel reshuffles the deck of a practice that continues to uncover new avenues for experimentation and exploration.

(Text by Dylan Caruso)