Matthieu Gafsou

Matthieu Gafsou (CH, F, 1981) lives and works in Lausanne, Switzerland. After obtaining a master’s degree in philosophy, literature and cinema at the University of Lausanne, he studied photography at the School of Applied Arts in Vevey. Since 2006, Gafsou has participated in numerous group and solo exhibitions, and has published six books. In 2009, Gafsou received the “HSBC Foundation Award for Photography” and was subsequently invited to contribute to the reGeneration2 exhibition created by the Musée de l’Elysée.

In 2014, the same museum produced the solo exhibition Only God Can Judge Me. In 2018, the H+ exhibition is one of the highlights of the Rencontres de la Photographie d’Arles and then travels around the world (China, Australia, Italy, Ireland, Spain, Switzerland, etc.). In 2022, the project Vivants is presented in extenso at the Pully museum and at Paris Photo where Gafsou wins the Ruinart prize. Gafsou has been teaching for several years at the École cantonale d’art de Lausanne (ECAL). He is also a founding member of the MAPS agency.

Transhumanism is an intellectual movement that aims to augment the human body through use of sciences and technique.

This topic refers to everyday purposes, which are already banal, such as the use of pacemakers or smartphones. It also refers to fantasies which advocate immortality and even claim the abandonment of the body made of flesh in favor of the machine. H+ is about the present. What really exists, what we can see, where we can see it. From Switzerland to Russia, between France, Germany and Czech Republic, he has been tracking, the people – from biohackers working in garages to major labs –, the objects and sometimes the concepts related to this movement.

It is the sum of various fragments that weaves a network of meaning. There are, therefore, many defects and deformations. Gafsou testifies here of the latent violence involved in the technological transformations under way.

(Source : Artist’s Website)

Matthieu Gafsou observes and analyses the equally worrying evolution of our society from the perspective of “transhumanism”. His series, which bring together images that are sometimes paradoxical, documents with an acerbic objectivity of detail the processes of mutation in our society linked to the question of the “expanded body”, which today is no longer a matter of fiction. His photographs, which are formally very well-constructed, find inspiration in both classical and contemporary art.

(Source : Paul di Felice)