Matthieu Gafsou / SACRÉ
from November 7th 2019 to January 11th 2020
Matthieu Gafsou (b. 1981) is a Franco-Swiss artist who lives and works in Lausanne, Switzerland. He is a graduate of the Philosophy, Literature and Cinema master’s programme at the University of Lausanne and studied photography at the École des arts appliqués de Vevey. Alongside his artistic practice, he teaches at the Université d’Art et de Design de Lausanne (ECAL).
Since 2006, Gafsou has participated in numerous group and solo exhibitions, and published five books. In 2009, he was awarded the prestigious HSBC Prize for Photography. In 2014, the musée de l’Élysée in Lausanne presented his solo exhibition ‘Only God can Judge Me’. In 2018, his exhibition ‘H+’ at the Arles Rencontres de la Photographie was widely acclaimed.
In 1996, the culture department of the canton of Fribourg created the Enquête photographique fribourgeoise. Following a biannual competition, a photographer is selected to carry out an inquiry into a particular subject. The works produced by the photographer during the inquiry join the canton’s collections, as well as forming the basis for an exhibition and occasionally a publication. In 2012, Gafsou was awarded the inquiry for the eighth edition of the prize. He presented a subjective, formally rigorous documentary investigation of the Catholic Church.
“This series of photographs suggests, implicitly yet unmistakably, that Catholicism is a religion of men (...), that this religion has been divested of its flock despite the baptism of children, that its confessionals are empty and that it lacks all contact with the outside world (...)
It also appears as if this is a religion that exists only in the past, one that is no longer passed on (...): no longer an assembly of the people of God with its majority of laymen, it interests only ethnologists and seems incapable of issuing forth any works of contemporary art.”
François Boespflug, L’Automne du catholicisme selon Matthieu Gafsou (extract), Sacré, Matthieu Gafsou, IDPURE éditions BCU Fribourg.