Verso

Verso, 2002
18 photographs


“Everything returns to the mirror.”


Henri Michaux
  Why are these portraits not taken head-on? So as not to hide what they show. So as not to show what they hide. Landscapes? We don’t know what all these people are looking at. No. We only know what they see. Versailles or something like it. Or perhaps its image.

You would need to be able to see behind it. This is a point that was identified as symbolic. It is known as the infinity point, a contradiction in terms, a symbol, the intersection of two axes... It comes from the garden’s layout, whose plane of reference is the sky. It is situated at the intersection of several planes, each formed by the crossing of two axes: the axis of the king and that of the sun.

At Versailles, the kingly sun can only be envisaged with and by the Sun King. You can only say yes to the centrality of the sun from the Sun King’s position, and the entire garden is precisely the identity of the two terms. An identity of inversion. If you look at the garden plan, it’s scientifically incoherent, if not completely wrong. The winter pool, as the days get longer and the sun rises, should be placed to the east, but it’s situated to the west. Likewise, and conversely, the autumn pond, as the sun declines and the days get shorter, should be placed in the west, but is in the east. The garden is conceived as a mirror of the sky, and it is precisely Le Nôtre’s operation that underpins the metaphor, reflecting the sky by inverting the cardinal points. At Versailles, the rule of identity is not tracing but inversion. Everything returns to normal if you look at the garden from the king’s place: the king’s chamber and all the points aligned with it merge into this infinity point. The King’s chamber is the gateway to the transformation of the kingly sun into the Sun King. The point of passage into inversion. This is where photography takes on a decisive role. The effect of reality it creates is also subject to the rule of inversion, itself modelled on the natural mechanism of vision.

Does the photographer see himself as an absolute monarch? No. But he can only capture the image at the point where everything is reversed. This is because he is double, and his psychic structure is similar to that of a camera. The orientation of bodies in relation to the rectilinear axis that extends the infinity point—which is perspective; bodies always slightly offset from this axis; the style of clothing, notice the colours, the patterns; the hair, notice its cut, colour, and appearance. All this reveals the hidden landscape. Hidden behind whom?

Julie Cortella : “Portraits de dos à Versailles, ou les miroirs de l’infini”, Urbanisme n°324, May–June 2002
Nouveau Plan des Villes, Château et Jardins de Versailles, dessiné sur les lieux en 1766 avec la marche que le Roi a ordonnée pour faire voir le Jardin. Source gallica.bnf.fr / BnF




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