In March 2011, the GwinZegal Center for Art and Research is inaugurating a new exhibition space in Guingamp, resulting from the “visual arts” project they began in 2003 to produce and distribute exhibitions and publish books. The space can be defined as an experimental place, a “work in progress”, a residency for photographic projects… Meetings, debates, (Studio)GwinZegal is also the precursor to a larger location, destined to house all of these activities in the near future.

The first will be an exhibition, presented from March 5 thru April 17, dedicated to the “photographic intimacy” of Christian Caujolle. The idea was born during the association’s colluqium last year, “Livre, Imprimé et Photographie” (September 10-11), where Caujolle participated alongside publishers including Gerhard Steidl, directors including Martin Gasser or David Benassayag and photographers like Stéphane Duroy. The “intimacy” of Christian Caujolle, is above all, for the exhibition’s instigators, a sort of homage to, or recognition of his career devoted entirely to photography. A career that took into account the many different aspects of photography, from exhibition curator to agency founder to journalist, critic, or author open to all types of art and news. But the best way is to let Christian Caujolle give us his own definition of “intimacy”.

“For more than thirty years now, I have been writing about photography and working with photographers. Very different people with whom I have developed projects from articles to books, exhibitions to communication. I have never been a collector. To one exception, studio photography, generally anonymous, or representing anonymous subjects, that I buy in South East Asia, one of my favorite areas. Over the years, however, I have come to own a large quantity of prints. Some were purchases, when my finances permitted, which meant rarely or only when the good graces of a gallery owner allowed me to pay over time. But the majority were gifts. Birthday gifts, gifts for no reason, gifts as reminders of projects, gifts to materialize a memory we shared. Many are on my walls. I live with them, greet them, and if I don’t actually talk to them, I am often under the impression that they talk to me. In making a selection, obviously subjective, unfair, partial, I want both to share them and to say thank you. Share the pleasure I take in being amongst these pictures taken by both famous or anonymous photographers and thank you to those who let me enjoy this privilege. Just to demonstrate our complicity.”

The collection resulted in an exhibition comprised of gifts and acquisitions chosen or discovered over the past thirty years. From Josef Sudek to André Kertesz or Michael Ackerman, Dieter Appelt, or Robert Mapplethorpe, Duane Michals, Alain Bizos, Antanas Sutkus, Malik Sidibé or Shoji Ueda, the selection is vast. It includes the incursions, the points of view and the eclectic nature of this “purveyor of pictures” and his influence on photography’s recognition in France and the supremacy of photography in France above and beyond the role of its institutions.

Bernard Perrine
Correspondant de l’Institut de France

“Indicrétions”

March 5 to April 17
[Studio] GwinSegal
3 rue Auguste Pavie
22200 Guimgamp