THE GRAVES ARE NICE THIS TIME OF YEAR

Jimmy Kets traveled throughout Flanders and Wallonia in search of remnants and monuments from 1914-1918, from the Westhoek to Limburg. The contemporary memorial landscape of the First World War is strikingly portrayed in this photobook, offering a fresh and dynamic perspective on the commemoration of the Great War.

The book accompanied the eponymous exhibition in the Lokettenzaal of the Flemish Parliament from September 25 to December 24, 2014. It includes textual contributions by Joost Vandecasteele and Maarten Van Alstein.

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“When we look at Jimmy Kets’ photographs, we see the gaze of a photographer with a perfect balance between respect and a total lack of respect. They are images that make both the erudite historian and the uninformed layperson view the monuments from the same distance—how these are in symbiosis with what has come after, how they form elements of a larger whole. By not zooming in too much, by not seeking grandeur, by not taking a conventional perspective, by keeping his colors subdued for a change, by examining the relationship with passersby or, conversely, the emptiness, Jimmy Kets succeeds in fulfilling the core task of photography: to select a moment of one second and capture it so that the viewer must look longer than a second and create their own story. A different story than the one we have been taught.”

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Joost Vandecasteele

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Year of publication 2014 - Sold out