Blown away by photographer Laurent Chehere
Image – Laurent Chehere
EMBRACING whimsy and estrangement, French conceptual photographer Laurent Chehere’s latest exhibition Flying Houses explores the “anonymity of the street”.
Inspired by a startling array of influences, from wandering around poor neighbourhoods of Paris, to the films of Wim Wenders, Hayao Miyazki (Howl’s Moving Castle) and Albert Lamorisse’s The Red Balloon, Chehere successfully reveals the “hidden beauty” in suburban buildings.
Cafes, houses, and hotels are photographed – not in the street, but as if they are sailing through the air. Here they take on a new dimension; details are heightened and the surreal nature of the images comes to the fore. An urban sideshow “near a highway” on the north side of Paris was the inspiration behind ‘Circus’. A closer look reveals a sad clown imitating Napoleon’s famous pose, standing on the tent roof, drawing hard on a cigarette. Chehere’s photographs are nostalgic, but also have bite, each one layered with visual significance.
