Objet Trouvé

Zurich photographer and coffee brewer Claude Stahel has preserved time in lockdown for eternity - in objects that question everything in their poetic uselessness.

It was an evening in the lockdown, one of those evenings that we have all experienced umpteen times, tough, dull, stimulation free. You sit at the table, the windows are cleaned, the cupboards tidy, Netflix has lost its magic power. There's nothing going on outside, nothing going on inside. Ideal for asking yourself the big questions. Who am I? What do I want? And, in Claude Stahel's case: What is a people photographer if he can't photograph people?

The gaze wanders across the table. What is a lighter if it can't produce fire? What is a corkscrew if it can't pull corks? And there his idea started to take form.

Stahel began with several casts: First, a silicone negative was cast from the object. This was then converted back into a positive with lead tin, resulting in an object whose original use was no longer available.

Heavy, massive, silent, absolutely useless images of things that are defined only by their utility. As if to push the absurdity even further, but of course simply following his deformation professional, Stahel still photographed these memorials of restless inactivity. On Kodak film, developed by hand. Analog enlarged, each image a unique piece on Silver Gelatine Bart paper. The result is a parable in 25 objects of our difficulties in dealing with the prescribed idleness in this performance-driven society. Or maybe not. Maybe it's just time that wanted to go somewhere.