Claudine Doury - Artek, Loulan Beauty

From 21 October 2022 to 31 January 2023 – Opening on 20 October 2022
Leica Gallery – Am Leitz-Park 5, 35578 Wetzlar, Germany

Loulan Beauty and Artek

The Leica Gallery has chosen to exhibit two series by Claudine Doury: Loulan Beauty, a journey through the different countries of Central Asia. Artek, an immersion in a holiday camp for Russian teenagers on the shores of the Black Sea in Crimea.

Loulan Beauty

This is the story of a slow disappearance, in the sands and in time, the end of a world, a journey through post-Soviet Central Asia and Chinese Xinjiang. I read “Djamilia” by the Kyrgyz poet Tchinghiz Aitmatov, and I dreamt of the kolkhozes lost in the steppe and its Uzbek, Kazakh, Kyrgyz and Karakalpak peoples… From 2002 to 2005, I was able to travel to the Aral region in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Xinjiang and the banks of the Issyk Kul in Kyrgyzstan.
“Loulan Beauty” bears witness to these men in the middle of the world, heirs to sunken kingdoms, to the fishermen without a sea, to the children who dance to bring back their parents who have gone to work far away, to Lola who dreams of America, to the men who listen to the sands singing and to the girls with a thousand plaits, the same as those found on Loulan, their four-thousand year old ancestor. – Claudine Doury

Artek

From 1994 to 2003, Claudine Doury stayed at the Artek holiday camp in Crimea, reserved for children of the nomenklatura. The transience and instability of adolescence are often portrayed through a principle of dazzlement: the transparency of a summer blouse, the glow of light on a sleeping face, or the blondness of hair that is both loose and disciplined, free and constrained, as were the young “pioneers” of Artek. A pivotal stage, this moment when the identity and individuality of each person is formed is fascinating. Using a palette of delicate colours, Claudine Doury reveals the paradoxes of this vulnerable age, between withdrawal and exuberance, illusions and disillusionment.