LUCIEN CLERGUE

Lucien Clergue

Lucien Clergue (born 1934 in Arles, France) was fostered in his creative work by his friend Pablo Picasso. Clergue is mainly known for his photographs of objects and female nudes. The Museum of Modern Art in New York City showed Clergue’s works as early as 1961, one year before he travelled to Brazil to photograph the birth of the city of Brasilia in the middle of the Brazilian steppe. Developed by Oscar Niemeyer, the city and its futuristic, curvy, reinforced concrete buildings is still considered the symbol for Brazil’s explosive arrival in modernity to this day. Fascinated by the gigantic project, Clergue focused on the immense construction site. In the exhibition, Clergue’s photographs of Brasilia correspond to a series of his Nudes. In these black-and-white photographs, astonishing analogies between the forms of the female body and the organic formal language of Oscar Niemeyer’s architecture become visible. Both artists are termed ‘erotomaniacs of the feminine curve’ (Eva-Monika Turck).