Raphaël Dallaporta

Who has never dreamt of being face to face with the first known drawings of Humanity? In the gorges of the Ardèche, the geological site of the decorated grotto of Pont-d’Arc, called Chauvet Grotto, the ones drawn by our ancestors were naturally preserved for more than 20 000 years before being rediscovered in 1994. The access has been strictly reserved to scientists ever since, although some exceptions are made. As the laureate of a photographic competition in 2014, Raphaël Dallaporta created especially for the grotto a system of automated photography that enabled him to recompose in images its complex volumes and its details. Over the course of three outings, he seized several panoramic views to grasp the full intensity of the space. Displaying these shots in black and white on a big screen, spread out like planispheres and accompanied by a specifically conceived audio composition, the installation gives an unprecedented reading of these landscapes. The visitor is immersed in slightly destabilising moving images that act, as the artist explains, as a “metaphor of the world’s movement, of the rotation of the Earth and the planets, as a reference to the anthropological hypothesis that caves and the cosmos are connected”. Going beyond an archaeological testimony, it is a way to invite the visitor to take the time of a new ritual with the image.

Chauvet – Pont d’Arc: l’inappropriable is published by Xavier Barral editions.