The last books, as nearly all of the books published by Marc Riboud concentrate on specific themes of his in-depth photography reportages. Beginning with Les trois bannières de la Chine, published by Laffont Books in 1966, or "Vrouwen van Japan" (1951), "Les Tibétains" with a text by André Velter, published at the Imprimerie nationale in October 2009 and "Algérie, indépendance" published by "Le bec en l'air" Books also in October 2009, "Demain Shanghaï", "Quarante ans de photographies en Chine" with a preface by Jean Daniel, "Istanbul", "Capital of Heaven" or again "Angkor, the serenity of buddhism" with a text by Jean Lacouture or "sous les pavés" in 2008, among others.

Monographs about Marc Riboud came much later. "Marc Riboud, 50 ans de photographies", was published in March, 2004 by Flammarion, Marc Riboud "l'instinct de l'instant", to accompany his exhibition at the Musée de la Vie Romantique, in March 2009 and the Photo Poche n°37 (1989, reprinted in 2010). In 2010 and 2011 "1, 2, 3… image" and "I comme Image", created by Marc Riboud and Catherine Chaine, were educational works designed to teach reading and counting using people and objects in the photographer’s images. A work of research and compilation that certainly influenced Choses vues that was just released by Actes Sud Books. 165 pictures selected from 60 years of “commissioned work or wanderings”, to look at, meditate in an unusual way. Here, chronology, geography or history are not used as guidelines. Just affinities the reader will discover himself.

For the past few years, a table was covered with hundreds of little prints in one of the rooms in Marc Riboud’s apartment. He moved them around throughout the day and changed them depending on visitors. He was working on two reference books with Catherine Chaine, but some similarities became evident, a sort of aesthetic perspective of the pictures.

Here a puff of smoke attracted ,there Zazou, the famous Eiffel Tower painter, posed in equilibrium in 1953, and there again, another man also posed in equilibrium next to the giant towers awaiting construction of the Seyhan Dam in Turkey, in 1955. Or the poor man hunched over in Leeds (1954) who seems crushed by the gentleman from the City with his cane and hat (1954).

But these analogies were not sufficient to make a book. 
The key lies in André Velter’s text, “The world according to Marc” that accompanies the pictures. He encourages us to look for a poetic dimension.

“Life like a picture book beyond time , traveling the world from moment to moment… that seems a heedless meandering, but emotions are always present. As if his viewfinder only fixed the most subjective moments, he favors the fleeting, the echoes, a collusion with subjects and things doing as they wish, gathering the effects and signs of a collective soul.

Following such a memory trail, of luck, humanity, forgetfulness, we see how much this constantly changing prodigy is above all the result of an internal light that puts roads, deserts, cities, reflections and movements under one spotlight.”

Bernard Perrine
Bernard.Perrine1@orange.fr

Book

Marc Riboud
Choses vues
Text by André Velter

Le monde selon Marc
Actes Sud / Imprimerie nationale
284 pages format 180x240mm
165 black and white pictures