Artist: Stéphane le Mercier
Dimensions: 100×158 mm.
Edition size: 240 numbered copies
Price: 4200 isk / 35 €
The artist’s book Rare postcards from Iceland by Stéphane le Mercier is based on a selection of found postcards from Iceland. The selection was purchased by the artist from a larger collection found in Stuttgart, Germany and depicts Icelandic landscape and meteorological/geological events, emphasizing various states of matter; ice, water, steam etc. The book contains the legends of the now lost postcards: Short lines of text (descriptions of natural phenomena) which appear as minimalistic sculptures on otherwise blank pages.
Stéphane le Mercier was born at Saint-Brieuc (FR) in the area ‘Les Cótes du Nord’. An area later renamed ‘Cotes du Armor’. Le Mercier always felt part of a northern landscape – the grey color, the rain etc. The editions depict the distance yet close encounter with a foreign however universal landscape, possible through ones imagination based on minimal descriptions. The edition includes a reference to Laurence wieners TNT landscaping – a statement hidden in the book like a golden nugget.
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Born in 1964 in St Brieuc, France, Stéphane Le Mercier now lives and works in Marseille. He has published a number of Artist’s books and editions besides exhibition his work internationally in solo and group exhibitions and as performances.
Most of Le Mercier’s book works presents a true suspiciousness to the power of images. An aspect that have become more and more apparent as Le Mercier neither draws nor makes photos for a book (except for bad black and white copies he forgets in the attic).
Stephane LE MERCIER – Documents d’artistes PACA
