Raymond Depardon: La vie moderne

From April 22 to July 23, 2023, the Power Station of Art and the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain present Raymond Depardon: La vie moderne, the first solo exhibition in China of French photographer and filmmaker Raymond Depardon who, since the 1970s, has profoundly redefined the world of contemporary photography.

Showcasing a hundred photographs and one feature film, the exhibition shares the approach of the artist whose visual language is simple and often frontal, keeping the subject in a central position. Always searching for the right distance, Raymond Depardon builds relationships between people and places. He 
listens and gives others a chance to speak, and projects a humanistic view of the world.

Borrowing his title from the 2008 film, that concluded
 the Profils paysans trilogy directed in collaboration with Claudine Nougaret, the Raymond Depardon: La vie moderne exhibition recounts the artist’s attachment to the rural world and gives an contemporary insight of France, its countryside, peripheral areas, and uneventful places, a vision removed from clichés, the picturesque, or romantic visions. A farmers’ son, Raymond Depardon draws a portrait of the world and of himself. By alternating between black and white and colour, he reinvents landscape photography.

Playing with a shot/reverse shot relationship between photography and cinema, the scenography designed by Adrien Gardère highlights how the practice of filmmaking and photography are linked, interact, and echo each other throughout the career of Raymond Depardon, who has often reflected on how to exhibit images in movement.

This exhibition is grounded in an over-thirty-years relationship between Raymond Depardon and the Fondation Cartier 
pour l’art contemporain. Founded on a shared vision of our contemporary society, its issues and its challenges, this uninterrupted dialogue has grown and prospered through many projects: 14 solo and group exhibitions, 19 books, and the production of 8 films. The Fondation Cartier’s collection also conserves 570 photographs by the artist including the entire collection of the La France and Rural photos.

This long-term relationship that links the photographer with the Fondation Cartier is characteristic of the manner in which the Fondation Cartier has operated since its creation in 1984; it allows itself to be led and inspired by artists who, through exhibitions, commissions, or publications, introduce it to philosophy, anthropology, and the sciences, and cultivate its ability to question, reflect, and develop its curiosity. Following the 2022 presentation 
of the largest exhibition ever of the artist’s work in Milan, the Fondation Cartier offers today the Chinese public the opportunity to discover a novel interpretation of his work.

Raymond Depardon: La vie moderne is the fifth collaboration between the Power Station of Art and the Fondation Cartier, after A Beautiful Elsewhere (2018), Junya Ishigami, Freeing architecture (2019), Jean Nouvel, in my head, in my eye… belonging… (2019), and Trees (2021).

Dates: April 22, 2023–July 23, 2023
Venue: 7F, PSA
Organized by: Power Station of Art, Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain
Curated by: Hervé Chandès, Gong Yan, Fei Dawei, Chiara Agradi

We express our appreciation to the Consulate General of France in Shanghai for its support for the exhibition Raymond Depardon: La vie moderne. The exhibition has been included in the 2023 Croisements Festival.