The Eyes #8 Automn 2017

A Photographic Narrative: A Challenge for the Gaze

Introduction by Michel Poivert, Doctor in Art History and photography expert

The True Truth’s Stories

Concept Isabelle Blanc & Olivier Hilaire

Following the collapse of his ideal world prompted by the discovery of photographs, young Mr Truth became entirely obsessed with a quest for truth: What is hiding behind the gloss of images, whether public or private?

The Crack

Photos Carlos Spottorno and Text Guillermo Abril

Over a period of three years from 2013 to 2016, photographer Carlos Spottorno and reporter Guillermo Abril received regular commissions from El País Semanal, the weekly magazine of the important Madrid-based daily newspaper, to document the outer borders of the European Union.

Dominique Lambert

Concept Stéphanie Solinas

How can identity be defined, and what does it cover? Is it intrinsic or a social construction? And thus a narrative? These questions are essential to the work of St.phanie Solinas, and quite logically, she extensively worked on Alphonse Bertillon, the inventor of criminal identification.

The Wake, Re-enacting the Spencer and Gillen Photographic Archives

Photos Christian Vium

In 2014, Christian Vium from Denmark became interested in the research conducted by ethnologists Francis Gillen and Sir Baldwin Spencer, whose archives on the Aboriginal peoples of Australia between 1875 and 1912 are the most extensive.

On Abortion

Photo Laïa Abril

Today, despite medical and technical developments, more than 40,000 women die every year from abortions. Millions of women in the world remain reticent to abort – for religious reasons or simply because of legal bans or social coercion. Many are minors and victims of rape.

Camden

Photos Jean-Christian Bourcart, Drawings Joe Sacco, Texts Chris Hedges

In their book Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt, journalist Chris Hedges and cartoonist Joe Sacco meet Americans who live in areas affected by a ruthlessly capitalistic system. They lead us to the dark spaces where society’s rejects survive in the United States. In five chapters, they describe the economic, social and environmental disaster caused by the over-exploitation of land and man.

HS / Histoire souterraine

Photos and text Amaury da Cunha

With his first book Saccades (2009), Amaury da Cunha initiated a dialogue between photography and text. To him, the two genres are complementary expressive means and not mutual commentaries or illustrations. The writings – until recently – came in fragmentary form.

Theater of war

Photos by Emeric Lhuisset

Emeric Lhuisset is an artist who questions the relationship between contemporary art and geopolitics through the news and media. Like a researcher, he undertakes in-depth investigations before travelling to the conflict grounds where he produces most of his pieces.

(Other) Adventures of Pinocchio

Concept by Lorenzo Tricoli

Italian artist Lorenzo Tricoli unexpectedly left us right when his work was finally receiving the attention it deserves. Condensing his aura in this short “episode of language” is a tough mission; hence I hope this piece serves as a diving board into his fascinating archive.

Conversation with Sophie Calle

by Rémi Coignet

In the first of his two articles about you in Le Monde in 1984, mentioned in your Douleur exquise / Exquisite Pain, Herv. Guibert begins with: “Sophie Calle is among the rare artists to take hold of photography to tell a story.” Would you agree? You tell stories?

Une Histoire d’Amour à Saint-Germain-des-Prés

by Tamara Berghmans

Half a century after the Dutch photographer Ed van der Elsken published his photographic story about the unrequited love of Manuel for Ann, I am wandering around in Saint-Germain-des-Pr.s. Looking for Love on the Left Bank.

Raised by wolves

by Jeffrey Ladd

A strong trend in so-called photojournalism in the 1980s and 1990s was the concerned photographer exploring a subject, often the darker margins of society, and shaping an edit and sequence into a photobook narrative.

Pictures from home

by Laurence Vecten

In the 1980s, the decade of Reagan’s presidency, Larry Sultan photographed his parents during visits spanning several years. Irving and Jean lived in the Palm Springs desert; their house was decorated with emerald-green carpets, yellow-gold wallpapers and thick curtains.

Reviews

by The Eyes

People in cars (Mike Mandel) by Jeffrey Ladd, Diary of a leap year (Rabih Mroué) by Maria-Karina Bojikian, Ville de Calais (Henk Wildschut) by Rémi Coignet, The Promise (Vasantha Yogananthan) by Marc Feustel, Buzzing of the sill (Peter van Agtmael) by Russet Lederman, Contains: 3 books (Jason Fulford) by Federica Chiocchetti.

Les Enfants du Monde

by Federica Chiocchetti

Any encounter with Dominique Darbois’s Les Enfants du Monde [Children of the world] books, published between 1952 and 1975 by Fernand Nathan, inevitably provokes a bipolar reaction. At first blush one is mesmerized by their noble concept of exposing post-Second World War.

New York by Saul Leiter

by Jeffrey Ladd

Within so-called “street photography”, several of the most prestigious names associated with the tradition – William Klein, Robert Frank, Diane Arbus, Louis Faurer and others occasionally worked on assignment for fashion magazines.

Azimut

by Christine Ollier

The collective Tendance Floue is famous for its collective campaigns in France (e.g. Mad in France, Mad in Sète), Europe (e.g. Nationale Zéro, Sommes nous?) and the rest of the world (e.g. Mad in China, Mad in India). These works, supported and created collectively, are backed by resultant publications, as is the case this time again with the six booklets Azimut, the first of which have just been published.

Victor & Albert Museum: photography expanded

by Russet Lederman

Now more than ever, with photography’s pervasive influence and accessibility, there is a need to create a comprehensive resource where its history and distinct roots can be mapped with depth and precision.

Florian Ebner, from Leipzig to Pompidou

by Charlotte Pons

He shows the restraint widely attributed to his fellow citizens and the restlessness of someone who is finding his bearings, coming on board. And what a ship! At 47, German national Florian Ebner was appointed head of the photography department at the Centre Pompidou.

Dune Varela, “Always the sun”

by Gisèle Tavernier

Her project is entitled “Toujours le soleil” (Always the sun). Sixth laureate of the BMW Residency at the Nic.phore-Ni.pce Museum (Chalon-sur-Sa.ne) in 2016, the French-American artist Dune Varela (aged 41) engaged in a “heliographic mission”: to revisit the codified documentary representation of the landscape from the time of the pioneering expeditions, in the 19th century.

Michel Janneau, a man of words in a world of images

by Charlotte Pons

He loves playing with words and would have gladly devoted himself to writing had wine not caught him “like the wave catches the surfer”. Michel Janneau, deputy managing director at Maison Louis Roederer, was heading towards a career as a university lecturer before “trying out journalism” then joining his family’s Maison d’Armagnac in the South West.

Marta Gili is Shifting the lines at Jeu de Paume

by Cristine Coste

Tristan Lund, on alert

by Charlotte Pons

He says that what moves him in an image is not what it represents (“a photo rarely delivers solid facts, right?”) but rather what it suggests through staging and composition. A photo does not tell a story but opens an avenue, giving the impression that something is about to happen. In the end, a photo gives full rein to the beholder’s imagination.

Christoph Wiesner, Artisitic Director of Paris Photo

by Gisèle Tavernier

What would you say are the emerging trends in the photo market at a time when the art market is led by finance, fairs are multiplying and the buyer pool is rejuvenating?

Marin Karmitz, a transmitter

by Charlotte Pons

This is one of the most anticipated exhibitions this autumn 2017: Maison Rouge is hosting the Marin Karmitz collection, consisting of close to 300 pieces of art, paintings, drawings, sculptures, installations and a series of his own photographs, which were partly revealed in 2010 in Arles.

Irving Penn at Grand Palais

The exhibition organized in Paris in autumn 2017 marks the centenary of the birth of this master of fashion photography and sheds light on a peerless artist’s pioneering quest for beauty.