Flowers, bones and light: Michel Medinger returns to Vanitas

Photographer, Olympian, perfectionist - Michel Medinger has left behind not only an impressive archive of images, but also an artistic philosophy imbued with themes of decay and vanity. His latest exhibition Vanitas, which opened at Villa Vauban as part of European Photography Month, is not just a final point, but a dialogue between life and death, between light and shadow, between classical art and surrealist photography.

Previously shown at the 2024 Arles Festival, the exhibition is a selection of self-portraits and still lifes, genres with which Medinger has worked particularly intently. His cameras captured not just objects but their dying: flowers on the verge of withering, skulls, dead insects - all reminders of mortality, referring to the Latin expression memento mori.

Medinger initially began by copying Rembrandt paintings with his father. This fascination led him to an obsession with light and shadow: in each photograph there is a precise directing of lighting. Light doesn't just illuminate, it emphasises, it cuts the composition into the living and the dead.

For more than 40 years, Medinger worked in his own darkroom, carefully controlling every step of the process. Yet there was often room for the unexpected in his photographs: a crack in a petal, an irregular fold of fabric, a glare that makes the dead come alive.

Few people know that in 1964 Michel Medinger represented Luxembourg at the Tokyo Olympics as a middle-distance runner. This sporting discipline left a mark on his approach to photography: concentration, endurance and an absolute commitment to perfection. Each photo is like a perfect run to the finish line.

Villa Vauban, which also exhibits paintings from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, seems the perfect stage for Medinger's work. His photographs hang alongside still lifes, including the work of Ferdinand Heilbuth, creating a visual conversation between painting and photography, between tradition and challenge.

Medinger has never endeavoured to please everyone. His photographs may frighten, repel or delight - but they do not leave one indifferent. Through his work, he has made death aesthetically tangible, given it form and light, and allowed it to become part of a dialogue about art and life.