Jochen Lempert: Predicted Autumn

Rochechouart Castle is delighted to be hosting work by Jochen Lempert, the German artist's first show in a French museum. A large selection of 130 photos occupies Rochechouart's second floor gallery space, displaying work Lempert has produced from the last ten years, purposefully presented here in non-chronological order.

Having initially trained as a biologist, Jochen Lempert (b. 1958) spent the 1980s studing on entomology at the Friedrich-Wilhelms University in Bonn. During this time he also collaborated with Jochen Müller and Jürgen Reble as part of the German collective Schmelzdahin (Melt Away) making experimental super-8 films on the effects of bacterial decomposition and the gelatine emulsion degradation on celluloid film.

Since 1990, Jochen Lempert has favoured the medium of photography to continue an exploration of living organisms and how lifeforms coexist. This dual influence of science and art makes Jochen Lempert a unique phenomenon in the contemporary art world. His work was first shown in France at the Kerguéhennec Art Centre in 2009 and over the last ten years he has given numerous solo exhibitions around the world, most notably at Cincinnati Art Museum (2015), at the Sprengel Museum of Hanover, Germany (2017) and recently at the CA2M art centre in Madrid.

Jochen Lempert's photos are invariably printed in black and white on matt baryta paper, evoking a cross between rigorous scientific classification and a searching for the sublime. His eye never seeks out the extraordinary. Instead, it focusses on the very opposite; ordinary scenes, fleeting moments and the poetry of everyday existence.

His subjects include geometrical patterns unwittingly produced by birds in flight, steam curling up from a cup of tea, aspects of urban nature, abstract forms produced by leaves. Jochen Lempert explores ideas of coevolution of humans and animals in urban environment or the changing perception of plant life.

All his photos are shown unframed, an effect that undermines any easy attempt to categorise them. Adding to this, Jochen Lempert then carefully creates formal or conceptual connections or dialogues between pictures, playing with scale and content in the exhibition setting.

Jochen Lempert's work lies on the fringes of science photography, displaying great formal purity as it imparts the fundamental fragility of life and the inter-dependence of all living things.

The exhibition is curated by Sébastien Faucon, director of Rochechouart Castle. Located at 40 km from Limoges, the museum is perched dramatically on a rocky outcrop. Most of the castle dates from the 15th century with an inner courtyard and elegant Renaissance gallery with frescoes from the 16th century. In 1985, Haute-Vienne Council established the Museum of contemporary art within its walls. The museum has an exceptional collection of artworks by artists such as Gerhard Richter, Luciano Fabro, Ugo Rondinone, Steve McQueen, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Danh Vo, Michael E. Smith. It includes also the Raoul Hausmann funds, dedicated to the famous dadaist who spent the last 20 years of his life in Limoges.

Rochechouart Castle is run by Haute-Vienne Council and is an officially recognized French Museum receiving funding from the French Ministry of Culture and Communication.