Winks of tangency

Paul D’Haese’s photographs are ideal images. They do not require any text. Adding words to images is tricky, as words tend to evoke different images or even examples as justification and, consequently, explain the image in question based on a different framework. It is probably no coincidence that these photographs do not have titles, a code at most, enjoy the protection of a wide white framework and uniform colour treatment and have the rhythm of a series that comprises a project.These projects do, however, have titles. They have the ambition to totalise something, not externally, not an encyclopaedic or scientific series or quasi-infinitive total of a collection, but a totality determined by the photograph and the process of photography itself. The cultural landscape, the built-up environment with all of its demarcations and flight lines, forms the perfect subject matter.

Textfragment Tangency, Francis Denys
At first sight, Paul D’Haese’s photographs look as if they are welcoming us to Absurdia. In fact, they show somewhere full of goodness knows what, with houses with blind walls and poorly fitting garage doors, and traffic lights lost in the middle of nowhere. However, if you take a closer look, the places, which appear to be such a hotchpotch, owe nothing to chance.

Textfragment Battlefield, Jean-Marc Bodson

Authors
Francis Denys, Jean-Marc Bodson

Book design
Atelier Sven Beirnaert

Photography
Paul D’Haese
All photos were taken in Belgium
www.pauldhaese.be

With the support of
Marc en Gaby Van Garsse-Derveaux
Casa Argentaurum Art Gallery
44 Gallery Contemporary Photography
PP Photolab