The work of Swiss artist-photographer Béatrice Helg occupies a singular place in the history of staged photography, which developed in the 1970s.Far removed from hyper-realistic or narrative approaches, in the 1980s the artist developed a specific style combining space, light and matter, which has won her international recognition. Her work presents abstract forms and luminous worlds. Influenced by the Russian avant-garde and constructivism, with a passion for music and keenly aware of the notions of space and time, architecture and the staging of theatre and opera, Béatrice Helg creates installations in her studio in which sculpture, painting, spatial design and, above all, light interact. She composes installations using recycled materials or materials that she imagines and shapes specially for the shoot. Here, light becomes the essential material. It is the medium through which all revelation is possible. Sculptures or ephemeral architectures, her monumental works emerge from the depths of silence, revealing worlds of shadow and light of strange beauty, as poetic as they are spiritual. You enter them and lose yourself, between the dazzling and the abysmal blackness! Béatrice Helg’s work opens onto the infinite, a quest for the absolute or the search for an inner mystery.
This exhibition – the most extensive monograph ever devoted to the work of Béatrice Helg – presents a corpus of more than 70 photographs taken over the last 35 years. It brings together vintage prints of exceptional quality of emblematic works and previously unpublished creations, mainly in large format.
This exhibition is part of the ‘Arles Associé’ sequence of the Rencontres d’Arles. It is generously supported by Pro Helvetia, the swiss arts council.
BÉATRICE HELG is born in Geneva (Switzerland) in 1956, Béatrice Helg studied cello at the Geneva Conservatory of Music. From 1976 to 1978, she studied photography at the California College of Arts and Crafts, Oakland, and at the Brooks Institute, Santa Barbara, California. In 1978-1979, she continued her training at the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York. She took part in the organisation of 'Venezia’79 – la Fotografia' in Venice. In 1981-1982, she joined the exhibitions department at ICP in New York. Béatrice Helg lives and works in Geneva.
