Stéphane Couturier – Alger - Climat de France
In this series, Stéphane Couturier explores, which was created over more than three years, in highly aesthetic and, at the same time, socially ambitious photos and videos, the “Climat de France” housing project – today called Oued Koriche – in Algier. Built-in the International Style in the 1950s and based on a design by French architect Fernand Pouillon, the ambitious project is now the centre of the Bab-El-Oued district. Today the housing project is a city within a city, forgotten by politicians and avoided by the police.
We are delighted to announce “Alger – Climat de France”, French artist Stéphane Couturier’s second solo exhibition at Galerie Kornfeld.
An autodidact, Stéphane Couturier was never influenced by any particular art movement. His predominantly large-scale photographs are more than simple reflections of factual reality. With a precise gaze, the artist identifies structures in the real world and translates them into works that verge on abstraction.
In his latest series, created over a period of more than three years, Stéphane Couturier explores the Climat de Francehousing project—today known as Oued Koriche—in Algiers through highly aesthetic yet socially engaged photographs and videos. Built in the International Style in the 1950s and based on a design by French architect Fernand Pouillon, the ambitious project now forms the centre of the Bab-El-Oued district. Today, the housing complex is a city within a city—forgotten by politicians and avoided by the police.
While Couturier’s earlier works focused primarily on the formal aspects of modern architecture, his recent pieces also examine the people who bring these architectural structures to life—structures conceived at the drawing board and later adapted to everyday needs. The rigid forms and regular architectural patterns encounter the unpredictable occurrences of daily life. The strength and vitality of Couturier’s photographs and videos emerge precisely from this tension: the collision between constructed ideals and lived reality.
In light of developments in recent weeks and months, Couturier’s works from Algiers gain a striking topical relevance beyond their aesthetic qualities. They subtly address the ongoing consequences of colonialism in North Africa, consequences that remain palpable today, and thereby touch upon one of the roots of current global political and social developments, particularly in this region.
In the Francophone world and in the United States, Stéphane Couturier (*1957) is regarded as one of the most important contemporary French photographers. His work has been exhibited at institutions including the Art Institute of Chicago, the National Library of France, the Centre Pompidou, MAXXI in Rome and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. In the summer of 2014, he presented his Algerian series at the Hôtel des Arts de la Ville de Toulon, where he combined photography with video and installation for the first time. In November 2015, a major solo exhibition of his work opens at the Musée Européen de la Photographie in Paris.
