LAUSANNE.- Musée de l'Elysée presents Carlo Valsecchi - Lumen, on view through June 14, 2009. Monumental industrial architecture: cranes, pipes, cables and machines of every description; high-tech laboratories with gleaming surfaces ; and vast tracts of South American agribusiness... Italian photographer Carlo Valsecchi alternates between the very near at hand, and the very far away. His large-format photographs, devoid of humans, hover between the factuality of the documentary approach and the aesthetics of abstraction. Valsecchi's unusual vantage points and carefully calibrated time-exposures destabilize our perception and encourage us to engage more actively with the image.

Although much of Valsecchi's work is clearly within the strong tradition of the industrial landscape developed by the German school, the photographer has found his own expressive register, often tending toward the monochrome. The work demonstrates a finely attuned eye and an exquisite color sensibility, one of softness and restraint.

The museum also presents Jacques Pugin - D'ombre et de lumière, on view through June 14, 2009. The Swiss photographer Jacques Pugin searches for sites in the world which express the complex relations that humans have with nature, sites which retain both something of the mystery of their origins and a sense of disquiet as to their future. Influenced by diverse cultures, sciences and religions, Pugin is drawn towards the sea, deserts and mountains, regions where violence, hostility and primitive beauty have tested man's bodies and souls. The images are then manipulated by computer to subtly enhance certain aspects. The exhibition features recent work, the latest of a thirty-year career.