JTF (just the facts): Published in 2024 by Chose Commune (here). Hardcover (26 x 20.5 cm), 64 pages, with 31 color photographs. There are no essays or texts included. Concept and editorial direction by Cécile Poimboeuf-Koizumi. Design by Cécile Poimboeuf-Koizumi, in collaboration with Perrine Serre. (Cover and spread shots below.)
Comments/Context: Talking about her way of working, the German artist Lia Darjes says, “My photographic work is always documentary in nature. I find it appealing to explore the limits of documentary photography and to anticipate the viewer’s experience while taking pictures.” Her new photobook Plates I-XXXI looks at the animals that pass through her backyard, in a formal style inspired by Dutch Golden Age paintings.
As a photobook, Plates I-XXXI immediately feels engaging. Horizontal and relatively slim, with silhouettes of animals debossed on its delicate velvet green cover, it is both comfortable and exciting. The title appears in an elegant sugar pink font at the top with the artist’s name at the very bottom, and both are repeated again on the spine. The book opens to dark green endpapers, and inside, all of the photographs are the same size, placed on the right page of the spreads, with a thin white border. There are no page numbers, captions, or any other text or design elements, immersing the viewer purely in its striking visual flow (and a light smell of ink). The book is gorgeously printed, making the bright colors stand out.
For this series, Darjes has photographed garden tables strewn with vases of flowers, half empty wine glasses, cups, food leftovers, stacks of plates etc., and these setups become the stage for small animals to visit. Raccoons, squirrels, cats, tits, slugs, field mice, ants, sparrows, and other less identifiable birds and rodents make appearances in these formal arrangements, and when shot with dramatic lighting, the photographs are reminiscent of Dutch still lifes.
Darjes started working on this project during the pandemic lockdown. One day as she was breastfeeding her baby by the window, she saw a squirrel jump on the table outside. She immediately saw an opportunity for a project, and spent the next four years documenting these passers-by. In her artistic practice, Darjes usually finds technical solutions to help implement her visions, not the other way around, and it took her a while to figure out the technical side of this particular project. She ended up using a weatherproof camera that was triggered by movement, which better allowed the animals to behave naturally.
The opening photograph captures a ball of fur skirting a half-full glass and a pink bouquet of lilies and hydrangeas lying flat on a wooden table; small wet footprints on the wood indicate that the raccoon jumped on the table and perhaps drank a little water. The following picture documents the simple beauty of a small bird walking on a round white table checking out a white mug. In yet another shot, a squirrel is caught eating a watermelon left on a green table, with two dozen red tulips in a vase in the background. These images are magical, mysterious, and unexpectedly exciting.
As we move through the book, more night-time visitors make appearances, including snails, lazy slugs, swarms of ladybugs, bees, rowdy raccoons, ants, mice, and a guilty-looking kitten. The setting remains the same: a table with various objects (sometimes covered by a colorful tablecloth) and the deep black background of the night. The bright colors of the fruits and flowers add an enchanting feel to each shot.
The parallels with the Dutch still life paintings in Darjes’s photobook bring to mind When Red Disappears by Elspeth Diederix (reviewed here), her shadowy underwater scenes reminiscent of lush Dutch setups. It also echoes Ed Panar’s Animals that Saw Me, a humorous and charming collection of various photos of animals that saw the artist, collected over a seventeen-year span (1993-2010). These projects offer an unexpected look at nature, also reminding us of its beauty and magic.
Darjes’ photographs capture the in-between moment where staging is interrupted by chance, offering a fleeting look at creatures that live close by, yet are not always visible. Intimate and quirky, Plates I-XXXI stands out, its striking photographs presented in a smartly conceived photobook. It is one of the most captivating and joyful photobooks published so far this year.
Collector’s POV: Lia Darjes is represented by Robert Morat Galerie in Berlin (here). Her work has not yet found its way to the secondary markets, so gallery retail remains the best option for those collectors interested in following up.
