Before the Eye Lid's Laid - Avant la pose des paupières

Ce quatrième livre d’Agnès Geoffray à La Lettre volée propose une constellation d’images et de textes. Les visuels du travail artistique d’Agnès Geoffray sont mis en dialogue avec de courtes notes de J. Emil Sennewald, d’une teneur plus poétique que critique, révélant toute la singularité de son travail d’écriture. À la fin de l’ouvrage, un texte analytique qui porte un regard novateur sur la question de l’acte d’image clôt l’ensemble des échanges. L’histoire de l’image pourrait se résumer comme celle d’actes violents. L’image pénètre, l’œil dévore, le corps subit, le regard perce. Le travail d’Agnès Geoffray explore ces actes violents : partant de photographies trouvées, elle expérimente cette latence induite d’images, qui suppose un événement dramatique à venir. Pour l’image photographique, cette latence se situera à la fermeture du diaphragme de la caméra ou celle de l’œil regardant l’image photographiée. Incarné par le battement de la paupière, ce bref instant est celui avant que se pose la paupière. C’est un temps d’arrêt. Un moment intermédiaire entre objet et image, vision et regard. Un moment où l’on retient son souffle.

This fourth book by French artist Agnès Geoffray at La Lettre Volée presents a special constellation of her disquieting pictures with alluding texts by German art critic J. Emil Sennewald, for which they received the award of the International Association of Art Critics - France in 2016, with the support of the Photographic Center of Île de France, the Goethe Institut of Paris and the Musée de l'Élysée of Lausanne. The visuals of Agnès Geoffray's artistic work are set in dialogue with short notes by J. Emil Sennewald, more poetic than critical, revealing the singularity of his writing skills. At the end of the book, an analytical text that takes an innovative look at the question of performative image concludes all the exchanges. The story of the image could be summarized as that of violent acts. The image penetrates, the eye devours, the body undergoes, the gaze pierces. Agnès Geoffray's work explores these violent acts: starting from photographs found, she experiments this induced latency of images, which supposes a dramatic event to come. For the photographic image, this latency will be at the closing of the diaphragm of the camera or that of the eye looking at the photographed image. Incarnated by the flapping of the eyelid, this brief moment is the one before the eyelid's laid. It's a pause. An intermediate moment between object and image, vision and look. A moment when one holds one's breath.

Agnes Geoffray was in residence at the Rijksakademie van beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam, a resident at the Villa Medici, the Academy of France in Rome, and lives and works in Paris. She has exhibited at the Kunsthaus Zurich, Kunsthalle Mainz, Kunsthalle Vienna, Mac / Val Vitry-sur-Seine, the Center of Photography in Geneva, Frac Auvergne Clermont-Ferrand and the Photographic Center Île-de-France. In 2017, she exhibited at Uprisings, an exhibition of Georges Didi-Huberman at the Jeu de Paume, and "An Imagined Museum", an exhibition of Emma Lavigne at the Center Pompidou Metz. She has already published three monographic books published by La Lettre volée.
J. Emil Sennewald, PhD in philosophy from the University of Hamburg, is an art critic, teacher and researcher based in Paris since 2000 where he is currently Professor of Philosophy at Clermont Métropole School of Art.