Wurstemberger de Hugues

Swiss. Born in 1955 in Berne. Lives in Bruxelles. 
Represented by Agence & Galerie VU'.

Under the title of “Pauline et Pierre”, the names of his two children, Hugues de Wurstemberger created a most surprising, accurate and moving family album. Nowhere can there be found the traditional gaiety that haunts childish imagery. Rather, there merely exists a loving and attentive tonality to a childhood exploring a world divided between fleeting fantasy and nightmare, exuberance and play, fancies and deep disappointments. Each image is framed in black and white with a constant attention to light, providing a surprising and elegant look into a structure that shuns effects and repetition.
Hugues de Wurstemberger lives and breathes this photography. Whether photographing a Swiss Guard in the Vatican, accompanying Saharan people, immersing in Africa and Latin America or chronicling Switzerland’s vanishing small farms, he has always maintained a fresh viewpoint, combined with an extremely demanding approach that provide his images with testimonial strength and force.

« Always square, always in black and white, always worried about collecting the vibrations of the light that sculpts the world of the terracing of his grey or of his contrasts, Hugues de Wurstemberger knows better than anyone, without any affectation, to find the right distance, the adequate space, the relevant tone, between tenderness and smile, which allows him to escape the anecdotal. »

Christian Caujolle