March 1871 Paris has been besieged and starved for two months by the Prussians. The people of Paris refusing defeat and humiliations rise against the bourgeois government of Adolphe Thiers and proclaim The "Commune". All hopes are allowed for those who went to the barricades to build a world fair and just. 30 000 died during the « Bloody week » when sanguinary troupes from Versailles killed their fellow citizens to make one forget their defeat.

The Commune of Paris was the first insurrection to be so much photographed from the barricades to the fall of the Vendome column, and the fights near the town hall "hotel de Ville". The photographic documents of this period are numerous.

These pictures already show the possibilities and ambiguities of the medium,photomontages; made up images, or interpretations, use of the portraits for mortuary or judicial purposes. The romantic or political use of the ruins of Paris.

The exhibition « Le Temps des Cerises » offers an analytical way of looking at the work, the part played by photographers and the conditions of photography in the 19th century.

Le Temps des cerises. La Commune de Paris en photographies
Until January 15, 2012

Musée de la Photographie
11 Av. Paul Pastur (GPS : Place des Essarts)
B-6032 Charleroi (Mont-sur-Marchienne)
Belgique
Tel. 32 (0)71 43.58.10