André Kertész : Retrospective
Faux Amis / An Ephemeral Video Library
Tomo Savić-Gecan : Untitled, 2010
Until 6 February 2011
Jeu de Paume
1, Place de la Concorde
75008 Paris
www.jeudepaume.org
lemagazine.jeudepaume.org
There has never been a proper retrospective of the work of André Kertész (Budapest, 1894 – New York, 1985) in Europe, even though he donated all his negatives to the French state. And yet he is one of the most important photographers of the 20th century, both for the richness of his body of work and for the sheer longevity of his career.
For the first time, this show will bring together a sizable ensemble of prints and original documents covering the different periods of Kertész’s life and artistic career. It reveals how he developed a genuine poetics of photography—what he himself called “a real photographic language.” The display highlights the autonomy of each photograph, while at the same time indicating the presence of series or recurring thèmes.
Adopting a chronological and linear exhibition layout reflecting the various periods of his creative life, punctuated by self-portraits at the entrance to each space, the curators, Michel Frizot and Annie-Laure Wanaverbecq, have created thematic groups in the form of “cells”, highlighting the unique aspects of his output: his personal photography (the photographic postcards, the Distortions), his involvement in publishing (the book Paris vu par Kertész, 1934), his recurrent creative experiments (shadows, chimneys), and the more diffuse expression of emotions (solitude). The exhibition sheds light on the importance of previously neglected or unexplored periods.
Between 1912 and 1985, Kertész remained true to his approach even though his style changed, technology was evolving (the telephoto lenses of the 1960s), and circumstances were providing new vantage points (From My Window would be the title of one of his books): I have never just “made photos”, he said, I express myself photographically.
Curators: Michel Frizot et Annie-Laure Wanaverbecq
Exhibition organized in collaboration with the Institut Hongrois de Paris
Faux Amis / An Ephemeral Video Library
WITH THE ARTISTS : ROSA BARBA / PAVEL BRAILA / BENOÎT BROISAT / JEREMY DELLER / PATRICIA ESQUIVIAS / ANNA GASKELL / SALLY GUTIÉRREZ / CHIA-WEI HSU / JEAN-CHARLES HUE / LARS LAUMANN / FLORENCE LAZAR / DANIEL LÊ / MING-YU LEE / CRISTINA LUCAS / DEIMANTAS NARKEVIČIUS / NOËLLE PUJOL & ANDREAS BOLM / ANRI SALA / LARISSA SANSOUR / MARTÍN SASTRE / RUTI SELA & MAAYAN AMIR / TERESA SERRANO / ANNIKA STRÖM / SHANG-LIN WU / ARTUR ŻMIJEWSKI
This selection of films made by artists from all over the world offers a fragmented description of the real. In a sense, these works highlight dissonances and failings of synchronisation, perhaps even shaking our convictions or preconceptions. They are interested in the reality that we know, but do not describe it in a classic, conventional way. Nor do they seek to mediate it, or to make it easier to understand by simplifying it. They are “Faux Amis”—inadequate translations of events that still contain echoes of reality.
The works brought together here feature stories from the margins of history and mainstream media. Using tension, humour and testimony, these micro-narratives work to shed light on events outside the history books and mainstream media.
Curator: Marta Ponsa. The exhibition “Faux Amis / An Ephemeral Video Library” is supported by Les Amis du Jeu de Paume.
Jeu de Paume receives a subsidy from the Ministry of Culture and Communication.
It gratefully acknowledges support from Neuflize Vie, its global partner.
Tomo Savić-Gecan : Untitled, 2010
Tomo Savić-Gecan constructs artworks that literally exist between present and future, here and there, between one public space and another, and between the minds of a viewer, wherever they might be, and the institutional space of the exhibition, which might happen to be somewhere else.
For the Satellite Program, he presents a major new project in two parts, one located in the Jeu de Paume, the other (its exact mirror image) in another institutional space, the Kunsthall in Bergen (Norway). Each part will be an exact reconstruction of an existing space in the Jeu de Paume, but with a crucially changed detail: in each room, one of the walls will be devised so that it can slowly move at an infinitesimally small rate in relation to each visitor that enters the opposite room. Each slowing shrinking room will effectively be a reflection of the other, with the motion in one space being set off by the visitors to the other after a short delay. Eliminating everything from the piece but the space itself, the “content” of the piece is the artist’s reconsideration of the conventional “white cube” of the institution, here doubled and made to almost monstrously (and increasingly claustrophobically) follow the actions of its double across Europe.
Curator: Elena Filipovic. Exhibition coproduced by Jeu de Paume, Paris and the Bergen Kunsthall (Norway). The Fondation Nationale des Arts Graphiques et Plastiques (FNAGP) contributes to the production of the new artworks featured in the Satellite programme.
