Lycien-David Cséry – Cracks and Dents

Review by Rudy Vega ·

Lycien-David Cséry’s Cracks and Dents is a meditation on imperfection, but it’s also a study in abstraction—one that draws as much from the language of painting as it does from photography. Taken between 2016 and 2018, the images document the dents, rust, and impromptu repairs found on the surfaces of cars. But rather than simply cataloging damage, Cséry reframes these blemishes as visual compositions, reminiscent of the gestural marks of Abstract Expressionism and the urban studies of the Chicago school of photography.

It’s easy to see the parallels to painters like Franz Kline or Clyfford Still, where bold contrasts and fractured forms suggest movement, history, and an almost subconscious mark-making. The surfaces Cséry captures—flaking paint, oxidation, and hastily patched metal—become accidental artworks, shaped by time, the elements, and human intervention. In many cases, the layering of color and texture mirrors the process of a painter working and reworking a canvas, only here, the artists are entropy, exposure, and necessity.

At the same time, Cracks and Dents is deeply rooted in the tradition of Chicago photography, where abstraction emerges from the overlooked details of city life. There’s a clear dialogue with Aaron Siskind’s textural studies of walls and peeling posters, as well as Harry Callahan’s ability to find rhythm and structure in everyday urban surfaces. Cséry, like these predecessors, isn’t interested in conventional beauty—he’s interested in how time and use transform objects into something more evocative.

But the project isn’t just about aesthetics; it’s also about place. These images are distinctly tied to Los Angeles, a city where cars aren’t just a mode of transportation but an extension of personal identity, status, and survival. The relentless California sun, with its ability to bleach, crack, and fade, plays an active role in shaping these surfaces, adding another layer to the work’s visual language. Los Angeles is a city of movement and reinvention, but also of disposability—cars are driven hard, damaged, and replaced. Cséry’s images speak to this cycle, highlighting both the temporary nature of objects and the traces they leave behind. The title Cracks and Dents itself recalls the American retail term for selling lightly damaged goods at a discount, reinforcing themes of devaluation and impermanence.

What makes Cracks and Dents compelling is the way it blurs the lines between documentation and abstraction, between photography and painting, between the disposable and the enduring. By focusing on the overlooked, Cséry reminds us that there is art in entropy, poetry in wear, and meaning in the things we leave behind.

Rudy Vega is a Contributing Editor and resides in Irvine, California. He is a fine art photographer and writer.

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Lycien-David Csery – Cracks and Dents

Photographer: Lycien-David Cséry (Born Tarmstedt, Germany, lives and works in Buchenberg, Allgäu)

Text: Julia Meyer-Brehm

Language: German/English

Editor: Lycien-David Cséry

Book Design: Lycien-David Cséry, Simon Frank

Soft Cover w/flaps; 300 g/m Ensocoat, 170 g/m Magno volume; 56 pages; 60 color images; 16 x 24cm ; ISBN 978-3-95476-706-9

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