
Douglas Mandry, Glacier des Bossons, 2020, série Monuments (2019-20), courtesy Galerie Binome
pièce unique – 62 x 75,5 cm
lithographie sur géotextile usagé (couverture de glacier)
encadrement bois anthracite, verre antireflet

Douglas Mandry, Parthie du Glacier de Roseg, 2020, série Monuments (2019-20), courtesy Galerie Binome
pièce unique – 125 x 142 cm
lithographie sur géotextile usagé (couverture de glacier)
encadrement bois anthracite, verre antireflet

Douglas Mandry, Rhonegletscher Eisgrotte (2300 m), 2020, série Monuments (2019-20), courtesy Galerie Binome
pièce unique – 125 x 142 cm
lithographie sur géotextile usagé (couverture de glacier)
encadrement bois anthracite, verre antireflet

Douglas Mandry, sans titre #9, 2019, série Monuments (2019-20), courtesy Galerie Binome
pièce unique – 57 x 70 cm
lithographie sur géotextile usagé (couverture de glacier)
encadrement bois anthracite, verre antireflet

Douglas Mandry, sans titre #14, 2020, série Monuments (2019-20), courtesy Galerie Binome
pièce unique – 62 x 75,5 cm – épuisée
lithographie sur géotextile usagé (couverture de glacier)
encadrement bois anthracite, verre antireflet

Douglas Mandry, sans titre #15, 2020, série Monuments (2019-20), courtesy Galerie Binome
pièce unique – 141 x 112 cm
lithographie sur géotextile usagé (couverture de glacier)
encadrement bois anthracite, verre antireflet

Douglas Mandry, Gletscherbesteigung, Fee Gletscher, 2019, série Monuments (2019-20), courtesy Galerie Binome
pièce unique – 57 x 70 cm
lithographie sur géotextile usagé (couverture de glacier)
encadrement bois anthracite, verre antireflet
The on-going project « Monuments » reflects a relationship between technological evolution and climate change. Douglas Mandry travelled deep into the Swiss Alps, collecting pieces of man-made, geotextile fabrics. Those «glacier blankets» are developed in Switzerland as an attempt to slow down the unavoidable process of disappearance.
The blocs of ice are inserted in a self—built large format camera containing photo sensitive color paper, travelling with Douglas Mandry through the mountains. Using specific aperture shutters pierced in the wooden camera, the ice is being exposed directly onto the paper. As an outcome, a trace of the melting ice left on the paper, developed in a dark room sometimes several days later.
Meanwhile, collecting found images of glaciers from the early 20st century, Mandry transferred them onto actual pieces of geotextile, which have themselves been brought down from the alps after a season on the ice. Through the antique process of lithography (Steindruck), a double-exposure phenomenon happens: the images, fading memories of golden age in Switzerland’s tourism, become part of the nowadays technological attempts to preserve a past which no longer exists.
As result, an effect of collage where time and space are consciously and playfully shifted by the artist, a product of the digital age where images are reproduced endlessly in virtual formats. Mandry questions materiality. By using physical materials and printing methods, he examines notions of tangibility and permanence. In constant dialogue with his means of making, subject and surroundings, Mandry opens up new ways of engaging with the world around us.

Douglas Mandry, Mountain Pass #4, série Unseen Sights (2015-18), courtesy Galerie Binome
édition de 5 (+1EA) – 120 x 150 cm – et – édition de 3 (+1EA) – 51 x 64 cm
tirage Lambda sur papier Fuji d’après photographie noir et blanc peinte à la main à l’aérographe et/ou à la peinture acrylique
contrecollage sur aluminium, encadrement bois blanc, verre antireflet

Douglas Mandry, sans titre #1, série Unseen Sights (2015-18), courtesy Galerie Binome
édition de 5 (+1EA) : 110 x 90 cm – et – édition de 3 (+1EA) : 64 x 51 cm
tirage Lambda sur papier Fuji d’après photographie noir et blanc peinte à la main à l’aérographe et/ou à la peinture acrylique
contrecollage sur aluminium, encadrement bois blanc, verre antireflet

Douglas Mandry, Mountain Pass #8, série Unseen Sights (2015-18), courtesy Galerie Binome
édition de 5 (+1EA) – 90 x 110 cm – et – édition de 3 (+1EA) : 51 x 64 cm
tirage Lambda sur papier Fuji d’après photographie noir et blanc peinte à la main à l’aérographe et/ou à la peinture acrylique
contrecollage sur aluminium, encadrement bois blanc, verre antireflet

Douglas Mandry, sans titre #4, série Unseen Sights (2015-18), courtesy Galerie Binome
édition de 5 (+1EA) – 150 x 120 cm – et – édition de 3 (+1EA) : 64 x 51 cm
tirage Lambda sur papier Fuji d’après photographie noir et blanc peinte à la main à la peinture acrylique
contrecollage sur aluminium, encadrement bois blanc, verre antireflet

Douglas Mandry, Mountain Pass #9, série Unseen Sights (2015-18), courtesy Galerie Binome
édition de 5 (+1EA) : 110 x 90 cm – et – édition de 3 (+1EA) : 64 x 51 cm
tirage Lambda sur papier Fuji d’après photographie noir et blanc peinte à la main à la peinture acrylique
contrecollage sur aluminium, encadrement bois blanc, verre antireflet

Douglas Mandry, sans titre #2, série Unseen Sights (2015-18), courtesy Galerie Binome
édition de 5 (+1EA) – 110 x 90 cm – et – édition de 3 (+1EA) : 64 x 51 cm
tirage Lambda sur papier Fuji d’après photographie noir et blanc peinte à la main à l’aérographe et/ou à la peinture acrylique
contrecollage sur aluminium, encadrement bois blanc, verre antireflet
“Interested in the gap between reality and representation, Mandry drew inspiration from orientalist picture postcards in old magazines of Oriental landscapes. The picture postcard became a popular way to communicate in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, mostly depicting monuments, landscapes, and native « Others ». It appeared at the emergence of mass tourism and was a great way to advertise a place. Landscape photographs would therefore often be enhanced by means of retouching and coloring to promote a place – the
more exotic, the better. On the one hand, photographic depictions of the Orient gave people direct realistic impressios of the Middle East previously reserved for elitist salons where painters would present their Orientalist impressions to a very selective audience. On the other hand, the popularity of image colorization to heighten the photograph’s realism also added a painterly layer – literally and figuratively speaking – that encouraged an artful effect over graphic documentation.
In his series Unseen Sights, Douglas Mandry does not so much as add reality to his landscape photographs by coloring them, but rather deconstructs it by emphasizing the process of creation. In a way, Mandry’s « sights » could be related to Edward Said’s notion of imagined geographies. Much of how we relate to time and space is poetic; our sense of self in relation to places and historical time is often based more on emotional associations than on rational sense.”
Mirjam C. Kooiman, Foam Museum