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Christian Lutz

Christian Lutz

In Jesus' Name

Name(s)

Christian Lutz (1973)

Website(s)

christianlutz.org

Instagram

@christianlutzphotography

Employment

100% photographer

Education

Bachelor, Ecole supérieure des Arts de l’Image Le 75, Brussels (BE), 1995

Title

In Jesus’ Name

Year of creation

2013–2024

Place of creation

Switzerland

Context of creation

Personal

Collaborators

Pablo Lavalley

Item(s) shown

Wallpapers

Dimensions

120 × 150 cm

Formats/Duration

4 wallpapers (120 × 150 cm each)

Material(s)

Blueback paper

Material supplier(s)

Photorotation, Geneva

With the agreement of the ICF church leaders, Christian Lutz photographed the congregation and its followers over the span of a year. 

A few days after his book In Jesus’ Name was published, a lawyer, hired by the ICF and representing 21 followers, protagonists in the photographs, filed a complaint and obtained an immediate ban on the book. Christian Lutz reacted by revisiting the banned photographs and delivering new images blacked out with thick banners. It is now impossible to recognise the faces. As an expression of prejudice, the text of the complaints filed by the plaintiffs is printed over this obliteration. From a work banned stems a new, even stronger one. In the urge to interpret images, one tends to project in them one’s own beliefs and doubts, and soon emerges the certainty of seeing in them what was feared.