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Possibly the most decisive instant of geopolitical power shifts in recent history, the Beijing 2008 Olympics was a highly complex orchestration of government PR to create the perfect event, one that would herald China’s arrival at world centre stage. With this series of complex digitally enhanced photographs, Eric Leleu spent nearly a year capturing the photogenic crowds and locations of a picturesque city, and re-working more than 4500 images to create a final set of 15 “perfect” scenes.
With a wink to both Cartier Bresson’s famous theory of the “instant décisif ”, and a nod to the staged cinematic style photos of artists like Jeff Wall, plus a heavy dose of socio-political metaphor, Leleu has used Photoshop to a level of Olympian extreme. Working for as long as three straight weeks on a single photo to construct the perfect tableau of angles and sunlight, shadows and tones, with individuals pulled from hundreds of shots and digitally placed in the scene, the final image captures these decisive instants during a highly orchestrated event.

This body of work fits well into the ART LABOR portfolio because as a project-oriented gallery we are firstly and foremost about the labor of artistic creation. It is an individual project, completed with an intensity and dedication to detail that one can only but regard with a flummoxed appreciation as to the level of work involved in the production of a single final image. For this, Eric Leleu will find his art work eventually safely taking it place in the canon of important photographic projects.

Martin Kemble - March 2009
Art Labor founder, director & curator