Löyly
Dorothee Smith
Filigranes Editions
French
Text by Dominique Baqué
Hardcover
191 pages
180 x 240 mm
2009
ISBN 9782350462967
In the Finnish language, the word Löyly describes the raising of a healthy smoke resulting from the transformation of matter (water -> steam), allegoric of the mutation of gender. The series displays unvegetated landscapes, where everything looks asphyxiated by an environment troubled in its ecosystem, since the beginning of the nuclear age. Haze, blur and smoke stand for the rhethoric of the gender trouble, embodied by portraits of transgendered, or perhaps genderless characters. These opaque atmospheres point out to dissolved identities, transitioning bodies and the indeterminacy of identity, in a collapsing post-modern world in which the sense of things is decaying, under a fluffy layer of disenchantment.
About the Artist
Dorothée Smith was born in Paris in 1985, and still lives and works there.
dorotheesmith.net
About the Publisher
For 27 years, Filigranes has been following an original and audacious path in artists’ editions. The editorial approach combines image and writing in unique books. Founded by Patrick Le Bescont, the catalogue offers 580 titles. The editorial approach is to combine Filigranes, in singular books, picture and writing, thus making cross eyes and sensibilities of photographers authors, artists and contemporary writers, without exclusion or styles genres.
filigranes.com
