The Eiffel Tower serves as Paris' trademark, a striking image frequently seen in films, on television and in photographs

For those who attended photographer Jean-Paul Lubliner's collection "Tour Eiffel 2000," however, this historic building has even greater significance.

One of the last exhibitions in the Year of France in China, "Tour Eiffel 2000" finished its two-week run at the Millennium Museum in Beijing on Sunday.

A selection of the 80 photos measuring 4 metres in height and 3 metres in width, were shown at the foot of Shanghai's Oriental Pearl television tower in April. But these images still comprise only a small part of the 300 photos Lubliner took in 1999 to capture the last year of the 20th century on film.

He chose the Eiffel Tower as his subject for the project for one simple reason: time.

Lubliner understandably saw time as the key element driving his work and recalls being intrigued by the luminous electronic clock on the second floor of the monument. He could not resist making this simple countdown to the year 2000 as the centrepiece of the year-long project.

Therefore, starting on January 1, 1999, Lubliner positioned himself beneath the Eiffel Tower and started taking photos.

His lens proposed an interpretation of time, offering a memory of the mosaic of the year preceding the new Millennium.

"Lubliner conveys to viewer a very personal and completely unusual vision of the monument. Through his work, one has the impression that the Eiffel Tower is the centre of the world, the centre of life," said Jiang Dong, a local photographer in Beijing.

The photos carry the colours and the mobility of a theatre and, in capturing gesture, he ensures the illustrated scene is only silent in appearance. Each one of his shots has its own meaning and that is how the story unfolds.

It is certain that, through this photo collection, Lubliner offers viewers a beautiful opening story for the Eiffel Tower's entry into the Millennium, as well as the complicity she establishes with her environment.

"The enchantment of the Tower, its universality, the various ways in which she seduces observers, shaded beneath the clouds, gleaming through the sunlight, adorned each night in light, these have never been rendered so faithfully, seen through the gestures and on the faces of those who gaze at her," commented Jacqueline Nebout, Chairman Executive Officer of the Societe Nouvelle d'Exploitation de la Tour Eiffel.

Lubliner's collection "Tour Eiffel 2000" has been published by Les Editions du Collectionneur.

(China Daily 09/20/2005 page4)