The Gallery Catherine Putman is pleased to present the exhibition of
Sophie Ristelhueber, the frist in Paris since her retrospective at Jeu de Paume.

For more than twenty years, Sophie Ristelhueber, has pursued a reflection on territory and its history, through the singular approach towards ruins and traces left by a man in places devastated by war or natural disasters. Using the means of the photography, the installation and the publishing, she is attached to the presentation of bare facts and footrpints of the history in human bodies and landscapes, by making wounds and scars visible, the real memories of traumas.

In this exhibition, Sophie Ristelhueber offers us a new approach to her own work. She transforms the photographs of landscapes taken in 1984 during the photographic mission of the DATAR*, by covering them with acrylic and thus turning them into the works of art which are complex and enigmatic at the same time. This pictorial intervention brings an unprecedented plastic dimension to this series, titled «Track»
The gallery presents new editions by Sophie Ristelhueber. Some of them are connected to the series «Track», others are prints realized from embroidery on the cross stitch.
The medium which she transforms with irony, by embroidering words or phrases with which she refers to the complex realities of the contemporary world: «War», «The Turkish question», «ISF»...

*The photographic mission of the DATAR (Interministerial delegation for territorial planning and regional attractiveness) is a public order addressed at the beginning, in 1984, to twelve photographs. The objective is to «represent the French landscape of the 1980s». Concieved as a specific event of the year, the project gained in importance and finally twenty-eight photographers, French and foreign, travelled all over France to constitute the base of 2 000 images. These, as well as the contacts prints of about 200 000 shots, are preserved at the French National Library.