AN exhibition focusing on French artist Jean-François Rauzier’s impressionist photographic series, “Givernisme,” is being held at the Sea World Culture and Arts Center in Shekou, Nanshan District until Feb. 23 next year.

As the first solo showcase of the artist in South China, the exhibition presents over 50 representative photographs by Rauzier.

This year also marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of the Impressionism, and Rauzier, as the only artist invited by the Fondation Claude Monet, had worked at Monet’s former residence for three months since May 2022. “Givernisme” presents these works highlighting the deep dialogue between Rauzier and Monet’s impressionist style.

Born in 1952, Rauzier is known for his vision beyond other countries. He has been called a “magician of reality” by art critic Damien Sausset and a “digital baroque” artist by writer and curator Regis Cotentin.

As a pioneer of the digital photography and creator of the technique known as “hyperphotography,” Rauizer’s works have been exhibited worldwide and won widespread acclaims. Today, his works are in the collections of the city of Lille, the city of Paris, the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, and the Newseum in Washington, D.C., among others.

In 2020, his work “Utopia” was a permanent exhibit at the French Pavilion at Expo Dubai. In 2022, 54 works from his “The Ballad of Paris” series were exhibited at Terminal 1 of Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport, which became an important symbol of the city’s artistic landscape.

At the end of the last century, when the advent of Photoshop fueled the rapid rise of digital photography, Rauizer found a way to realize his artistic vision: He used software technology to stitch together landscapes from different regions and angles to create hyper-panoramas with rich details.

In his early urban series, he used the hyperphotography technique to photograph real-life places (with a focus on cultural heritage sites) and to construct different surrealist universes by bringing together thousands of photographs taken with a telephoto lens. For example, in the work “Hyperversailles,” he intends to transcend visual perception and provoke the viewer to think by infinitely reproducing and extending the Palace of Versailles.

His works are not only a profound reflection on the way we see the world, but they also touch on core issues that run through the foundations of society, such as culture, science, progress, oppression, ecology, and utopia.

This exhibition will also display the large-scale work titled “Tulips in Giverny” for the first time.

Dates: Through Feb. 23, 2025

Venue: L2 UCCN Gallery, Sea World Culture and Arts Center, Nanshan District

Metro: Line 2 or 12 to Sea World Station, Exit A

(Wang Jingli)