Jean-Baptiste Huynh, Lumière

Published on the occasion of the exhibition Jean-Baptiste Huynh -Rémanence, Louvre Museum from October 4 to December 31, 2012. This monographic work Lumière, published by Éditions du Regard as part of the Louvre exhibition, brings together six series of the artist's work, including the one made at the museum, and is accompanied by a preface by Henri Loyrette and a text by Dominique Braqué. The book presents through six unpublished series the fundamental themes of the artist: light through reflection, transparency, gaze and the relationship to the infinite. The catalog opens with mirrors, gradually covered with colored flat areas and veins. Then come sunsets with multiple chromatic ranges that display unexpected, even unusual tones. The photographs of the fire focus on the light, the black objects or characters that reveal the power of this tonality often considered as a "non-color". Finally, the last series focuses on portraits of the blind, thus revealing that light is not only physical but also a matter of presence. Through these pages, Jean-Baptiste Huynh offers sensitive echoes and associations; a fragment of a Greek face and a sunset, the glow of a candle and the transparency of a crystal skull, the enigmatic gaze of an ancient portrait and the brilliance of an Iranian ingot, thus offering a sensation of contemplation and restraint.