Lieven Lefere, Golden Dawn (Reversed), 2014. Courtesy: Galerie O•M•S Pradhan/Casa Argentaurum.

Suddenly I stopped. Between my eyes and the horizon a sensational event has occurred; a vertical rock, in granite, is there, upright, like a menhir: its vertical makes a right angle with the horizon. Crystallisation fixation of the site. This is a place to stop, because here is a complete symphony, magnificent relationships, nobility. The vertical gives the meaning of the horizontal. One is alive because of the other. Such are the powers of synthesis.1
The point of departure of the work La raison des ombres2 is the mausoleum of the former Vietnamese leader Ho-Chi-Minh. This building, with adjoining public space, was constructed during the mid seventies in Hanoi. It was designed as a unifying symbol for the Northern and Southern parts of the country after the Vietnamese war.
I do not aim to express a political message through the work, though. The inner space of the mausoleum, the sanctum sanctorum, is presented as a room stripped of all visible symbols referring to a specific political context. To me the space symbolizes a reflection on the status of the (photographic) image and the intersecting lines of photography, architecture, memory, and history.
My main inspiration behind the production of La raison des ombres is my fascination for places where it is prohibited to take photographs, which stands in stark contrast to our over-mediatized world, flooded with images. Based on rare footage and my own recollections of a visit some years ago, I reconstructed the inner space of the mausoleum in my studio on a scale of 1:3. The photograph is all that is left of this large scale model and remains as a document for presentation.
Compared to former works, such as General Assembly, a reconstruction of the Assembly Hall of the United Nations Headquarters, my modus operandi is more or less the same. I recreate the basic architectural space and by manipulating or removing most of the existing ornaments and symbols. Coupled with my choice of materials, I aim to make the space look more universal. By then adding some small architectural gestures I try to activate the space. In the case of La raison des ombres I included two adaptations. Firstly, I left out the glass coffin with the embalmed body, which in reality is the main point of focus of the architectural space and the reason of its construction. By setting the coffin in its negative space, a sinkhole, I intend to make this absence of the body visible. Secondly, I made a thin vertical incision in the main wall to open up the centre of the building. By allowing the light to flood into the space, it is transformed into a symbolic camera obscura.
The photographic image freezes time, just as the embalmed body denies the transitoriness of the body and thus the progress of time. By this gesture a connection is made between the outer and the inner space. Through the thin vertical line you can catch a liberating glimpse of the horizon. It was also inserted as a reference to The Museum of Unlimited Extension, an unrealized building complex designed by Le Corbusier. Inside this museum the architect drew a labyrinthine trail that leads the visitors away from the centre of the building. Here and there an interuption of the wall provides a rare view on the surrounding landscape. In the case of La raison des ombres, however, the spectator is lead straight to the centre of the building. The atmosphere of the mausoleum is dark and desolate, but the incision is offering a vanishing point to the spectator. A mausoleum for the living conceived as a liberating space where time stands still and existence is commemorated.
1Quote Le Corbusier, from a lecture in which the French architect describes a walk he made along the coast of Brittany in 1929.
2Referring to the book La perspective, avec la raison des ombres et miroirs written in 1612 by the French engineer Salomon de Caus.