Le Journal de la Photographie

Vichy 2013: Les portraitistes à l'honneur

2013-06-18

Compared to the many established photo festivals in France, Le Rendez-vous photographique de Vichy, which opened on June 14, is a newborn. The event, devoted entirely to portraits, lasts all summer long, and features the work of eight international photographers: Jérôme Bonnet, Dorothée Smith, Denis Rouvre, Pascal Aimar, Liu Bolin, Sarah Moon, Vanessa Winship and Sylvie Meunier. This year’s festival line-up was selected by Fany Dupéchez, artistic director and curator of the exhibition, director of the Centre Culturel Valery-Larbaud Karim Boulhaya, and Deputy Mayor of the City of Vichy Charlotte Benoit.

Vichy 2013 Liu Bolin

2013-06-18

A master of camouflage, Lui Bolin uses his body as a means of expression. The photographer and performer conceals himself in landscapes like a chameleon. He stands motionless for hours in front of a wall, a pile of charcoal, a telephone booth or a supermarket aisle while his assistants paint his body until he quite literally blends in with his surroundings. By becoming “the invisible man,” Bolin calls attention to the ravages of economic and urban development, which crush lives and deprive individuals of their individuality.

Vichy 2013 Dorothée Smith

2013-06-18

A 2010 graduate of the École nationale supérieure de la photographie d’Arles (ENSP), Dorothée Smith was the breakout star of the Rencontres d’Arles 2012. This 28-year old photographer surprised and charmed viewers with her portraits of teenagers coming to terms with their own sexuality, diaphanous beings inhabiting changing bodies, pushing the boundaries of the masculine and the feminine towards a new gender defying the laws of nature.

Vichy 2013 Vanessa Winship

2013-06-18

Vanessa Winship has lived and worked for nearly ten years in Turkey and the border regions of Armenia, Iraq, Iran and Syria. In each of these countries, she took portraits of young girls in school uniforms. Her black-and-white photographs are all taken head-on and from the same distance. The repetition and the minimalism of the framing, the austerity of the setting enhance the symbolism of the uniform, creating a link between these schoolgirls and their daily struggle.

Vichy 2013 Jérôme Bonnet

2013-06-18

Celebrity photographer of the worlds of politics, music, cinema, fashion and literature, Jérôme Bonnet is one of France’s most famous photographers. His portrait of Dennis Hopper earned him a World Press Photo Award in 2008. Pete Doherty, Jeanne Moreau, Brian Ferry, Kirsten Dunst, Jean-Lous Trintignant, Melvil Poupaud—few if any stars have been able to escape Bonnet’s camera during his work for the world’s major magazines these past 15 years. Jérôme Bonnet is represented by the Modds agency.

Vichy 2013 Sylvie Meunier

2013-06-18

The first photobooths appeared in the 1920. Accessible to all, this cheap, automated process replaced the photographers. Alone or with others, in the privacy of the booth, a few coins were all that was necessary to leave with a self-portrait. People posed, laughed, made faces. This game, imagined from my collection of found photographs brings together 24 moving, anonymous portraits.

Vichy 2013 Denis Rouvre

2013-06-18

Since hostages were taken in Ouvea in 1988, Denis Rouvre has been intrigued by the mystery of the Kanak. Who are these dark-skinned French men and women living 22,000km away from the mainland, with customs and lifestyles completely out of step with our own? Invited by the Tjibaou Cultural Center, Denis Rouvre spent a month in New Caledonia among the Kanak tribe of Canala. He returned with a spectacular series of color portraits showing the vision of a “foreigner” in his own country.

Vichy 2013 Pascal Aimar

2013-06-18

Inside his car, the driver is alone with his thoughts. In the series Car en Sac, Pascal Aimar enters the privates space of ordinary drivers, seeking to make visible, through their faces, the interiority of the human soul, the expression of a loneliness shared by all.

Vichy 2013 Sarah Moon

2013-06-18

Sara Moon revisits the great stories of the imagination in films that are at once sensitive, light, sweet and acidic. The photographs on display at the Petit Chaperon enter into dialogue with their animated versions.

Julia Fullerton-Batten: A Testament to Love

2013-06-18

‘A Testament to Love’ is a narrative about the struggles of life when love goes wrong. The women in my images wrestle with the eternal search for a happy ending, but find themselves left with feelings of solitude, loneliness, fear, regret and resignation. Are they searching for a meaning to their lives or just waiting for something to happen.

Drouot: Eastern Photographs, June 20

2013-06-18

As part of their Eastern-themed sale, the curators-auctioneers Fros & Delletrez are offering a large selection of photographs by important artists like Alary, Antonio Beato, Francis Bedford, Félix Bonfils, Alexandre Bougault, Giacomo Brogi, Henry Cammas, Charles Clifford, Louis De Clercq, Maxime Du Camp, Tancrède Dumas, Dmitri Ermakov, Famin, M. Flandrin, Garrigues , Rafael Garzón, Gustave Le Gray, Lehnert & Landrock, Paul Nadar, Neurdein, Capitaine Piboul, Portier, Sebah & Joaillier and Zangaki. The auction specialist is Antoine Romand. Here is a selection of the items for sale.

Izima Kaoru : Angela Reynolds Wears Valentino

2013-06-18

For its fourth exhibition in Sankt-Apern-Strasse, the Van der Grinten Galerie is showing a new series by the Japanese photographer Izima Kaoru (*1954). The exhibition title “Angela Reynolds Wears Valentino” is, at the same time, the title of his recent cycle from the series “Landscapes with a Corpse”, to which the artist has devoted himself since 1993.