FREE ENTRY
WEDNESDAY - SUNDAY
14 p.m. - 18:30 p.m.
Exhibition in partnership with the Permanent Representation of Finland to the Council of Europe.
With the complicity of Camera Obscura gallery
Gleaner of landscapes - wild, transformed, unusual - the Finnish photographer reveals a fragile universe which is composed harmoniously. In a monochrome treatment and with the same plastic power, the horizons of the Baltic Sea, South Africa and Namibia merge. Impossible to date (between 1980 and 2011) this deep mysticism can only emanate from natures with perfect beauties.
The finesse of execution of Pentti Sammallahti, his technicality of the printing and his personal poetry are combined in intense frescoes of bucolic landscapes where humans and objects get lost in this abundant, surreal and melancholic nature. As if the man had to compose according to this melancholy, for fear of stirring up his anger.
"Here in the distance" stands out as an invitation to discover what is essential, to break free from the spatio-temporal framework. Pentti Sammallahti teaches those who know how to be attentive, the contemplation of the existing.
Celine Duval
Curator: Céline Duval
“The work of Pentti Sammallahti is a kind of space odyssey. Who owes nothing to Kubrick. The earth seen by him, at the height of a man or a bird, is white as snow, pure as it. Curiously populated by familiar animals that make their way in the solitude of an undetermined place. "
Gerard Macé
“Here in the Distance is a retrospective covering more than forty years of photographic work in almost as many countries. Despite this, the discreet title chosen by Pentti Sammallahti refers to the paradox that a photograph always represents a here-and-now: the encounter, on the walls of an exhibition or in the pages of a book, between a artist and spectator, an encounter obviously subject to the law of impermanence but which always reflects their mutual capacity to establish a dialogue, to project the past captured by the image into the present of the spectator and his future.
Finn thrane
Born in 1950 in Helsinki. Lives and works in Helsinki. Pentti Sammallahti developed a passion for photography very early on and had his first solo exhibition in 1971. He began a teaching career in 1974 at the Lahti Art School and then at the Higher School of Arts and Design in Helsinki. The 1990s were to be marked by numerous photographic expeditions across Europe, Asia and Siberia, which he continued in the 2000s. In 2005, he left for the African continent for a commissioned work by the Japan Today organization. His work is exhibited around the world in personal and group exhibitions.
Passionate about books and photography reproduction techniques, he has designed and self-published more than forty books or portfolios, classified as “Opus”, thirteen of which are devoted to his own work. Pentti Sammallahti is represented by the Camera Obscura gallery in Paris.