Isabelle Le Minh: After Photography

The title of Isabelle 
Le Minh’s solo exhibition, After Photography, takes the name of a vast body of work, commenced in 2007, from which most of the pieces on display originate. The formula, which can be interpreted in two ways—in the chronological sense and in “in the manner of”—reveals the quintessence of the artist’s approach. She explores the nature of the image, its subjects, uses, rationales, founding myths, and history. Since the radical change brought about by the advent of digital technology and the new media for broadcasting information, it is no longer possible to depict the world with the device: there needs to be a sea change in the approach, exploring the very essence of the images, the status of the artist and the concept of originality in a world where the image is predominant.

The exhibition, which brings together photographs, installations, paintings and videos, demonstrates the wide-ranging experimentation in Isabelle Le Minh’s work. On the ground floor, the exhibition looks at the historical and technical foundations of photography, while the first floor is given over to a more contemporary and abstract dimension of images and their uses.

The works play with words, signs and cultural codes, melding tributes, quotes and diverted objects used in a resolutely conceptual and polysemic vein. The references to the artists and theorists, chemical processes, photographic equipment and the new technological media are like milestones that punctuate this photographic exploration.

In the ’90s, Isabelle Le Minh gave up her job as a patent engineer in Berlin
 to devote herself to photography. A graduate of the École Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie in Arles, she now teaches at the École Supérieure d’Art et Design Le Havre-Rouen. Since 2000, her work has been shown in major exhibitions, at the Month of Photography in Montreal (2015), at the Rencontres d’Arles (2012) at the Montrouge Photography Fair (2010), as well as at the Centre Photographique d’Île-de-France (2014), Maison Rouge in Paris, the Musée des Beaux Arts in Mulhouse (2013) and at the SMAK in Ghent (2009). In 2016, Isabelle Le Minh won the Adagp’s “Artist’s Book Young Talent Revelation Prize.” She was also awarded the Trafik “Plastician Photography Prize” (2003) and the “Young Artist Prize” (2000).

Isabelle Le Minh will also be the subject of an Arte Creative documentary as part of the “Atelier A” series.
 She is represented by Galerie Christophe Gaillard (Paris).

Director: Véronique Souben

Press contact: Chloé Palau, c.palau [​at​] fracnormandierouen.fr

Frac Normandie Rouen is funded by Normandy Regional Council, The Ministry of Culture and Communication / DRAC Normandy and Sotteville-lès-Rouen City Council.