OTTAWA.- A major work of art by French artist Sophie Ristelhueber, purchased by the National Gallery of Canada in 2013, is now on view in the Gallery’s contemporary art galleries. Titled Fait, this photographic installation produced in 1992 comprised of 71 aerial and ground views of the Kuwait desert taken after the first Gulf War. The NGC is the only museum to have acquired the work in its entirety.

“Fait is an iconic 20th-century art work, drawing the viewer into a disconcerting factual encounter with the detritus of war while retaining an aesthetic grace. It has served and continues to serve as a powerful influence on a younger generation of artists. We are very proud to present this remarkable work to the Canadian public,” said NGC Director and CEO, Marc Mayer.

Visitors are invited to attend a conversation between Marc Mayer and Sophie Ristelhueber this Friday, November 6, at 12:15 pm in exhibition space B102. The conversation, which will be conducted in French, will be followed by a bilingual question period.

Sophie Ristelhueber has continued a reflection on territory and its history for about thirty years, through a unique approach to the ruins and traces left by mankind in those places devastated by war or by natural and cultural upheaval. Far from the classical photo story, she strives to implement the bare act and the stamp of history on both the body and on the landscape, by rendering visible wounds and scars, veritable memories of the “acts” of history.

If she essentially turns to photography in her work, Sophie Ristelhueber utilizes her shooting to create full plastic works, playing with the material and the format of the image, its status, its framework and its installation in space.

Her work has been exhibited in numerous international institutions, among which MoMA (New York, US), Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, US), Albright-Knox Art Gallery (Buffalo, US), The Power Plant (Toronto, CA), Tate Modern (London, GB), Imperial War Museum (London, GB), biennials of Johannesburg, Sao Paulo, Triennial of Etchigo-Tsumari, Rencontres Photographiques d’Arles, and in Paris, MNAM – Centre Pompidou, Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, Musée Zadkine, and Musée Rodin. She is represented by the Jérôme Poggi Gallery in Paris.