I say ‘first’ because Wermers is a sculptor and the photographs she takes are only one part of this artwork. The second kind of space is illusionary: it’s the space multiplied (and divided) by mirrors and other reflective surfaces.
The spaces she shows us are first, rooms: those Rococo chambers of the Musée Rodin, where sculptures and plaster casts of Auguste Rodin and Camille Claudel are on display to the public.
Nicole Wermers usually finds herself among the ranks of the image appropriators, but for the Buhuu Suite she made the photographs herself.
Ghosts inhabit these rooms and challenge our presence (a Burgher of Calais makes us feel distinctly unwelcome).
The third space is her own: a sculptural terrain born of the union of the photograph (now with its neat package of conventional spaces) with polished geometrical fittings – round and rectangular steel clips – cold steel dots and dashes which seem to comment on the works below in impenetrable Modernist prose. Wermers enjoys this cultural clash: the grey zone is the space where she is most at home.
Text by William A Ewing