Justine Blau
Born in Luxembourg in 1977, Justine Blau studied visual arts at the Ecole Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Strasbourg, before going on to study at the University of Paris. Masters in Sculptureat Wimbledon College of Art, University of the Arts London, which she obtained in 2008. The artist quickly made a name for herself, in 2009-10 with the Ecotone exhibitions at the CNA in Dudelange and in 2010 with her participation in Moving Worlds - Young Creation Triennial at CarréRotondes with some intriguing works, as much for their technical production as for their subject matter: large-scale installations of assemblages of three-dimensional photographs placed on the floor entitled Somewhere Else.
Justine Blau's works tend to visualise an exotic elsewhere, a new Reality. This is achieved both through the design of 'photographic sculptures' that blend landscapes to create a new one, and through the creation of imagery designed to inlay a place into reality.
Master's degree in sculpture from Wimbledon College of Art, London
- 2015
- The Circumference of the Cumanán Cactus, Cité de l'image, Clervaux.
- All roads lead to Schengen, Frac Lorraine, Metz.
- Don't Panic. A harmless exhibition, Cape, Ettelbruck
- 2014
- The adventure of a photographer, Museo Laboratorio di Arte Contemporanea, Rome
- The Project, Galerie Bradtke, Luxembourg
- The world is blue like an orange, Arendt & Medernach, Luxembourg
- 2013
- Subjective maps / Disappearances, a Little Constellation project, National Gallery of Iceland
- Los primeros emprendores, Galerie Toutouchic, Metz
- Los primeros emprendores, Centre d'Art Dominique Lang, Dudelange
- DistURBANces, - LandEscapes, MNHA, Luxembourg
- Landmark: The Fields of Photography, Somerset House, London
- Anatomicals, Bergman Berglind Gallery, Luxembourg
- 2012
- DistURBANces, MUSA, EMOP, Vienna Noorderlicht Festival, Terra Cognita, Museum Belvédère, Oranjewoud
Justine Blau decided to search the Internet for images related to travel, the discovery of new territories, virgin lands, the unknown and exoticism. To do this, she uses search engines such as Google and enters the words she wants (islands, paradise, elsewhere). She then prints these coloured images on paper, re-materialises them in reality, and assembles them into fictional sculptures. Like an explorer and discoverer of new worlds throughout history, Justine Blau is an explorer of the virtual world: the great globalised library where images are omnipresent, demonstrating her ability to index and 'arrange' the world, but also to manipulate and simulate it. This ties in with the artist's interest in the concept of the foreigner developed in the West, and the construction of Orientalism in the nineteenth century.e In the same way, Justine Blau creates impossible landscapes, new imaginary worlds, new virtual realities, microcosms and terra incognita. In the same way, Justine Blau creates impossible landscapes, new imaginary worlds, new virtual realities, microcosms and terra incognita, questioning the cultural boundaries of the concept of "place". "imaginary geography", theorised by Edward Saïd.
Justine Blau's 'photographic sculptures' follow in the tradition of photomontage in the history of art (László Moholy-Nagy, Man Ray, Kurt Schwitters). They are, above all, visual constructions in relief, crossing the divide between nature and culture, simulations created by various distorting optical processes borrowed from the past: trompe l'oeil, miniature, panorama effects, perspective games.
With the series of light boxes
(2010), commissioned by the City of Manchester for an urban railway station, Justine Blau drew her inspiration from the representation of exotic landscapes on posters and billboards designed to sell dreams and travel. The Cumaná cactus (South America), a rare biological variety with an extraordinary circumference (1.54 m), was discovered by Humboldt in the 19th century.e
century. The work evokes the quest for new territories and scientific exploration, but also, by extension, the Grand Tour and the birth of modern tourism.
The perception of the world and the outside view of the village of Schengen by non-Europeans prompted Justine Blau to create an installation in the public space for the Kiosk de l'AICA in Luxembourg entitled Schengenland (2011).
Artworks catalogue
