Description

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Special insider access to the rebuilding process at Notre Dame after the 2019 fire, shot with a historic wet-plate collodion photographic process.

In Tomas van Houtryve: 36 Views of Notre Dame, the viewer accompanies the artist on his fourteen-year journey photographing the Paris icon before and after the fire. Van Houtryve obtained remarkable access to the cathedral to document the devastation of the fire and the reconstruction.

Drawing inspiration from Hokusai's series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, the artist explores the monument in different contexts, seasons and using a wide range of photographic techniques--from 19th-century wet collodion to aerial drones. Accompanying the artist's works is a multilayered archive of the cathedral, including historic photographs, vernacular images and text by Victor Hugo.

About the Author

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Tomas van Houtryve (b. 1975, California) is a Paris-based Belgian artist, photographer, and filmmaker whose major works interweave investigative journalism, philosophy, and metaphor. Van Houtryve makes images using a range of processes, from nineteenth-century wet plate collodion to thermal imaging and augmented reality. His projects challenge our notions of identity, memory, and power, often highlighting the slippage of wartime structures into everyday life. 36 Views of Notre Dame is van Houtryve's second Radius book, after Lines and Lineage (2019).