IC-Europe // Encounter with Jochen Lempert

Having initially trained as a biologist, Jochen Lempert (b. 1958) spent the 1980s studing on
entomology at the Friedrich-Wilhelms University in Bonn. During this time he also collaborated
with Jochen Müller and Jürgen Reble as part of the German collective Schmelzdahin (Melt
Away) ma king experimental super-8 films on the effects of bacterial decomposition and the
gelatine emulsion degradation on celluloïd film.
Since 1990, Jochen Lempert has favoured the medium of photography to continue an
exploration of living organisms and how lifeforms coexist. This dual influence of science and art
makes Jochen Lempert a unique phenomenon in the contemporary art world. His work was
first shown in France at the Kerguéhennec Art Centre in 2009 and over the last ten years he
has given numerous solo exhibitions around the world, most notably at Cincinnati Art Museum
(2015), at the Sprengel Museum of Hanover, Germany (2017) and recently at the CA2M art
centre in Madrid.
Jochen Lempert’s photographs are invariably printed in black and white on matt baryta paper,
evoking a cross between rigorous scientific classification and a searching for the sublime. His
eye never seeks out the extraordinary. lnstead, it focuses on the very opposite; ordinary scenes,
fleeting moments and the poetry of everyday existence.
His subjects include geometrical patterns unwittingly produced by birds in flight, steam curling
up from a cup of tea, aspects of urban nature, abstract forms produced by leaves. Jochen
Lempert explores ideas of coevolution of humans and animals in urban environments or the
changing perception of plant life.