Photography
Eric LUSITO
Eric LUSITO

Introduction

Eric Lusito focuses on the links between order and chaos. In his first project "Traces of the Soviet empire" he addresses the way history is fabricated at the border of documentary and art photography.

Eric Lusito has travelled as an archaeologist and a collector throughout the former Soviet world fromEast GermanytoMongolia, fromPolandtoKazakhstan, in search of these former Soviet military bases that embodied the ambition and the might of theUSSRand his photographs are an extraordinary record.

 

Fascination for a collapsed civilisation shared with a true desire to discover sites hidden for so long, these sites of power are doomed to disappear in the course of time, final chapter being written in the history of this modern civilisation. The military departed but much else was just left behind.

 

In theSoviet Unionmore than elsewhere, the feeling of ?reality? was built upon ideological representations spun by the political system. This political power had the will and the mastery to harness the immense creative talent of Russian artists to rally society together with a totally new Soviet culture. For millions of workers throughout the world, sustained with the image of a ?country of bread and roses? their wait implied the building of a dream, but also the building of an inevitable lie caused by the gap between the Eden created by propaganda and the daily reality.

 

These images question us through photography, a technical process used to present reality, the nature of decay, a physical process of disintegration and lastly politics, a mental process of manipulation. They make us think about the role of art and therefore that of the artist. There are many ways of reading and re-reading this work.

Biography

b. 1976 Italy, lives in France

Solo exhibitions

2012   Latvian Museum of Photography, Riga, Latvia
  Espace Quai n°1, Vevey, Switzerland
2011 Kaunas Photo Gallery, Kaunas, Lithuania
  Galerie Chez Arthur & Janine, Arles, France
2009 «The USSR and its heroic universe», University of Paris Sorbonne, France
2008 GIM Galerie, Bremen, Germany
  4th Triennial of Photography, Hamburg, Germany
2007 NegPos Gallery, Nîmes, France

 

Group Exhibitions

2014   Museum of Civilisations from Europe and the Mediterranean, Marseille, France
2012 Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts, Kiyosato, Japan
  70th Biennale of Contemporary Art, Musée des Beaux-arts, La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland
2011 Musée de l?Armée, Paris, France
  Bursa Photofest, Turkey
  Institut Français, Meknes, Morocco
2010 Galerie Baudoin Lebon, Paris, France
  The Annenberg Space of Photography, Los Angeles, USA
  International Photo Awards, Best of Show Exhibition, New York, USA
  Galerie de La Scala, Paris, France
  Les visas de l?ANI, le Floréal, Paris, France
2009 Prix Voies Off, Arles, France
2006 Galerie universitaire Roger Portugal, Nantes, France

 

Lectures

2011   Lycée Gabriel Fauré, Annecy, France
  « Memories of stones » University of Meknes, Morocco
2010 « Esthetic of ruins », University of Paris IV Sorbonne, France
2009 « Young creators », University of Paris IV Sorbonne, France
2008 « Russia today », MC2, Grenoble, France
2007 « A look to French photography », National Center for Contemporary Arts, Ekaterinburg, Russia

 

Monograph

« After the Wall Traces of the Soviet Empire », Dewi Lewis Publishing, UK, November 2009

 

Awards

PDN Photo Annual ? Best photo books 2010
Prix de la Photographie de Paris PX3 ? Best photo book 2010
The Year's Best Photography Book, PhotoEspana, shortlisted 2010








texts

FRAC Bretagne, Fonds Régional d?Art Contemporain, France

K-MOPA, Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts, Japon

MuCEM, Musée national des Civilisations de l?Europe et dela Méditerranée, France