PHOTO:Thomas Klotz-I’ll Never Be Young Again

Thomas Klotz first became known for a work published in 2019 by EYD Paris, “NORTHSCAPE”, which presents a series focused on his region’s suburban landscapes, along the lines of the American “New Topographics” movement. Continuing with his exploratory approach toward his familiar environment, the artist presents at Galerie Nathalie Obadia a recent body of work.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Galerie Nathalie Obadia Archive

In his  new series, “I’ll never be young again” which will be the object of a publication in spring 2021, Thomas Klotz addresses the theme of adolescence and the anxieties that come with it, by referencing his twelve-year-old daughter. Devoid of narrative dimension, this implicit portrait takes shape through anonymous images, “punctuation exercises,” where walls, volumes, materials, voids and shadows are all surfaces of projection, silent commentary. Heavily influenced by Lewis Baltz, Thomas Klotz directs his attention to the everyday, the trivial, where the shot resembles a micro-input of something that, in the photographer’s eye, takes on an intriguing and singular thickness. In addition, through his framing, Thomas Klotz turns away from what naturally draws the eye while suggesting presence by way of hints that attest to a life captured candidly toward a tipping point. In counterpoint, the full-length photograph of the young girl, with her eyes pointed at the objective, marks a frontal return to the human figure in the artist’s work, which still tends toward a sort of pictorial abstraction. This portrait combines a certain number of visual reminiscences, incarnating, more or less cryptically, what underlies each image: attributes of childhood, resurgence of the floral motif and of the color yellow, golden, which, from a certain, metaphorical point of view, refers to the ephemeral character of nature and, by extension, to this transitory age (“Nature’s first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf’s a flower; But only so an hour.”). Thomas Klotz speaks of “secret passages,” “ghosts”: the variety of scenes portraits, landscapes, cityscapes, interiors finds its coherence in these mysterious affinities, these underground connections, which are in fact specific to the adolescent world. If certain elements denote an evident toughness, the prints’ bright or outrageous colors contribute to unifying the series in an atmosphere that tends to be anxiety-inducing. In fact, Thomas Klotz uses several different practices, from the contemporary inkjet print to the older dye-transfer technique, popularized by William Eggleston in the 1960s and widely used in advertising until the 1990s. The latter process, with its unique chromatic rendering, consists in applying each primary color to a paper, one layer at a time, using templates. Here, it allows him to evoke a world that contains its excesses and its shares of shadows, angsty visions that the artist recognizes as also being his own.

Photo: Thomas Klotz, Sans titre, 2017, Dye Transfer print, 61 x 75 cm (24 1/32 x 29 17/32 in), Edition of 2 + 1 AP, © Thomas Klotz, Courtesy the artist and Galerie Nathalie Obadia

Info: Galerie Nathalie Obadia, 3 rue du Cloître Saint-Merri, Paris, Duration: 9/1-6/2/2021, Days & Hours: Mon-Sat 11:00-19:00, www.nathalieobadia.com