Sludge, steel and silver

At the crossroads of genres, Lucas Leffler’s work summons the documentary, the experimental and flirts with fiction. The artist readily takes the position of investigator, both to conduct research on photography’s technical aspects, showing an inextinguishable taste for experimentation, going back in history, unearthing astonishing forgotten mythologies.

The history of the places he investigates takes part in the work as well as the experiments with the medium, pushing the limits beyond its two dimensions. The artist directs his explorations towards the mineral and chemical qualities of silver. For the Zilverbeek project he walks in the footsteps of the precious metal rejected by a photographic products company. His recent re-enactments include the celestographies by August Strindberg or the experiments with silver nitrate by Lilly Kolisko. He examines the issues of alchemy and anthroposophy, questions the processes and materials long inherited, and with them the place of humans and their rituals within their own history, discovering the quality of the so created links.

Lucas Leffler’s performative practice of re-enactment questions history and its writing. It is not the issue of remaking history or of repeating it, but rather of replaying for the present events or experiments that have been understated, sometimes ignored by history. Therefore he participates in the contemporary principle of historical reassessment in questioning the values that underlie it.

Yuna Mathieu-Chovet

All images from the Sludge, Steel and Silver series are from Lucas Leffler’s residency in Brussels - Contretype, 2020.

Website: www.lucasleffler.com

© Lucas LEFFLER, Steel-Plates II (détail), 2020, 200 x 250 cm / © Lucas LEFFLER, Mudprint 12, 2020, 70 x 100 cm / © Lucas LEFFLER, Gevabox, 2020, 24 x 30 cm