Art Paris 2022: Nature finds its place in contemporary art once more

The beautifully placed and brightly lit halls of the French capital's Grand Palais Éphémère are once again hosting one of the highlights of the contemporary art year.

Art Paris is back, only a short hiatus from its last incarnation back in September 2021.

Opening to the public on Thursday morning, this edition brings a focus on the natural world and how art relates to and reflects the environment.

Guest curating the 'Natural History' section of the fair, Alfred Pacquement says the aim is "exploring, observing and taking stock of nature, noting how it is transformed or endangered and showcasing it, recounting its every aspect."

Fitting then that I should discover a young artist whose thought-provoking and original works cleverly and magically start a conversation about climate change, specifically glacial reduction.

Born in Zurich in 1989, Mandry marries subject and materials with great innovation. The late 19th/early 20th century photographs on which he bases his work were taken during photography's teenage years, when heavy and expensive box cameras were lugged, ceremoniously one imagines, halfway up a mountain to record a group's exploits in Alpinism.

The mountainsides will not look quite like they did over a century ago now. Indeed here in the 21st century, resorts across mountain ranges use a particular method to attempt to slow the glacial shrinkage caused by climate change.

A time-consuming task that can take weeks to carry out, workers cover parts of the glacier with a protective polyester fleece, which helps stave off summer melting and preserve more of the snow that fell in the previous winter.

It is this precise material that Mandry uses as the canvas for his lithographic prints of the archive photographs.

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