TRUST MAGNUM
YOUNNES KLOUCHE
In central Switzerland, international companies enjoy tax privileges and set offices in large buildings just like those of The City in London. The managers and employees roam the streets of a small village in german convertibles or running clothes at lunchtime.
The management and research division of these companies is based in Switzerland but the production take place in developing countries, nations that own valuable materials at cheap price. The only small thing is that operating in such a kind of places they can easily evade from respect human and environment rights. Glencore for instance is a giant wholesaler and mineral extractor based in Baar, is one of the biggest commercial company in the world, in 2010 they owned the 60% of the zinc global market, 50% of the copper mines of the and 3% of the petrol infrastructures. We can say that Glencore own worldwide oil, mineral and natural gas facilities as well as food industries. The accusation on Glencore are heavy, the work conditions of the employees are unacceptable based on the western world standards, without mention the negative impact on the local communities and on the environment.
The work of Younès Klouche not pretend to judge those dynamics, or using images as a tool of complaint of a ethically questionable legacy, handed down from company to company. The artist gives us the access inside of this tax free heaven, absorbed in one of the most beautiful landscape of the entire nation.
With no privileged access on site, central Switzerland allowed Younès Klouche to observe what makes no uproar, spy the discrete practices of traders hide inside dark and shiny buildings that hits also the less attentive watch. As spooky postcards, made with sharpen and rigid elegance, the images of Younès Klouche are almost violent and creates an aesthetics experience that leave the observer frozen. An intangible cold that deals with the distance, the untouchability of a world that remains closed in a inscrutable bubble of glass. Born in Lausanne, Younès Klouche studied photography at ECAL where he graduates in 2015. Threw his work he looks for solutions to re-define the documentary genre thanks to a conceptual and reflexive approach. His projects are mainly in the book form but also installative and are shown in collective exhibitions in Musée de l’Élysée, the Bienne Photoforum, Art Bärtschi Gallery or the Tate Modern. In 2016 he published Orphée his first book, with the publishing house Edition du Lic.
On this occasion YET will present a video installation that completes the experience of the paper magazine. The ninth issue of YET magazine analyzes the opposition "control vs. free circulation" of the image. On the one hand photography has been used since the beginning as an instrument of control and supervision by governments, politics and military organizations. On the other hand, the practice of photography is evaluated to a greater extent depending on the context of use and presentation, above all it is subject to dynamics of diffusion and sharing that go beyond its creation.