SPRING/SUMMER 2020 CAMPAIGN DOCUMENTED BY OLIVIER KERVERN

Landscapes and the texture of a city. There is no other place where layers of history, light and shade, clarity and diversity, nature and the human-made, turn into each other and merge as they do in Sicily and in Palermo. The beauty in the balance of conflicting elements that runs throughout Lucie and Luke Meier’s work at Jil Sander has here one of its mirrors. Harmony within opposites; open fields and baroque, fluid and sculptural forms; masculine and feminine; concrete and lace. Archetypes, ascetic and voluptuous.

Olivier Kervern, the photographer that Lucie and Luke Meier have invited to join them on their most recent road trip, believes that within photography there are fleeting moments of freedom and truth. He senses something clear, bright and precise, and at the same time he has a feeling of distance from his subjects. He creates the touch of suspended time and intimacy in these pictures. “Terrain vague”. The differences between figures and backgrounds melt. The Jil Sander women and men travel. Shadows, reflections, and lights outline and blend at the same time. The process is unmistakably analogue. The modern seems primordial and the archaic clearly speaks to us. “These photographs are both abstract and sensitive; sharp, delicate, and extremely honest. In these environments and buildings, in these portraits, Olivier has captured the emotions we intended. It was a true pleasure working with him.”