At Paris Photo, a focus on the
power of women
Tuesday, November 9, 2004
The loss of three towering 20th-century figures — Henri
Cartier-Bresson, Helmut Newton and Richard Avedon — casts a somber shadow over
Paris Photo. But the international photography fair, which opens on Thursday at
the Carrousel du Louvre, puts the recent deaths of these famous and iconic
photographers into a historical perspective.
The spontaneous record of 20th-century
life from the French photographer and Newton's steely, sophisticated eroticism
have left their thumbprints on photography. Yet a young generation has long
since been searching for a fresh approach after the tyranny of photojournalism
in the postwar years. Nor does this generation aspire to a glossy, stylized
perfection.
"Paris Photo has always had its focus on
young photographers," says Valérie Fougeirol, the fair's manager. "What we see
now is very eclectic and personal and we see all forms of photographic
expression. What comes through is documentary reporting. And of course there is
the reaction to the current war that comes in the iconography. The images
surround us and we live with them."
One element seems crucial in this year's
showing from 105 exhibitors: the power of women both behind and in front of the
camera. Whether it is a private feminine world with all the emotional intensity
that implies or a public assertion of individuality, women are taking center
stage. And that includes those from a world where the female voice is often
silent.
"I was particularly pleased to have Iran
for the first time with a strong message behind it," says Fougeirol, referring
to the participation of the Silk Road gallery from Tehran. The joyful warmth of
Malekeh Nayiny's family pictures, of her mother and siblings or of her two aunts
looking like picture-postcard schoolgirls, contrasts with a more somber
statement from Shadi Ghadirian. She shows a veiled head further concealed by a
saucepan, as a powerful statement about women condemned to hide their faces and
stay in the kitchen.
Another eerie image is Kimiko Yoshida's
photograph of a blind bride, her veil concealing strands of hair and the white
background melding into an ethereal image.
Fougeirol also admires the work of the
contemporary Israeli photographer Leora Laor and her images of urban alienation;
and she picks out a series of images from the Japanese fashion photographer
Izima Kaoru, whose 10-year project "Landscape With Corpse" has created an
extraordinary archive of well-dressed women committing ritual crimes in a lush
scenario (at Buro Fur Fotos, Cologne).
"They were asked to choose a way of death
and the result is very strong, mixing a lot of things, yet very serene,"
Fougeirol said, referring to an image of a Japanese woman dressed in a scarlet
dress in a green field, with an arrow through her heart.
There are also four exhibitions on the
personal oeuvres of contemporary women photographers, including Laor (at the
Virginia Green Gallery, New York), whose digital images of Mea Shearim,
Jerusalem, reflect reality obliquely in a water puddle or a mirrored surface.
Tina Barney's four-year portrait odyssey "The Europeans" is on show with Janet
Borden, New York; while Elena Dorfman of San Francisco creates silicone women as
sex objects that give a new meaning to "Valley of the Dolls" (Edwynn Houk
gallery, New York). The final woman in this quartet is Flor Garduño, a Mexican
photographer whose "Inner Light" nudes and still lifes are on show with Art 75
Yves di Maria, Paris.
Paris Photo has put Switzerland at the
center of the fair, from the important contribution of the contemporary
Fotomuseum Winterthur, near Zurich, to eight solo gallery shows that focus on
contemporary art through the medium of photography.
On the historic side, New York's Bruce
Silverstein gallery is celebrating Robert Doisneau with a series of previously
unseen prints of Parisian life.
And a valedictory tribute to
Cartier-Bresson is made by the Agathe Gaillard gallery, which aims to show the
essence of the photographer, who was witness to his times and who marked
subsequent generations of photographers. (A talk in homage to Cartier-Bresson
will be held on Nov. 11 with Agathe Gaillard; Agnès Sire, director of the
Henri-Cartier Bresson foundation, and, among others, the photographer Sarah
Moon, whose film on the subject will be screened.)
*
For all the power of the simple and
spontaneous recorded with an artistic eye, Paris Photo traces a trend among
contemporary photographers to meld old-style reportage with art photography.
That creates a new hybrid genre that can include combinations of text, image
manipulation and reality. Examples of photographers working in this genre are
Simon Norfolk (at the Martin Kudlek gallery in Cologne), whose landscapes in
Afghanistan, Iraq and Normandy are all of territory scarred by war, and the
images of Uzbekistan by Rip Hopkins (Le Réverbère gallery in Lyon).
In a very different way, David
LaChapelle's joyous use of enhanced color creates images that are both upbeat
and modern.
Beyond the Paris Photo fair, the city of
light is also the hub of a series of exhibitions putting photography in sharp
focus through November. They include Robert Capa at the Bibliothèque Nationale,
Bernd and Hilla Becher at the Pompidou Center, Alfred Stieglitz at the Musée
d'Orsay, "L'Ombre du temps" at the Jeu de Paume and Vienna in 1900 at the Maison
Européenne de la Photographie.
Many private galleries are focusing on
photography as well. Pierre Passebon selected some unexpected work from Karl
Lagerfeld at the Galérie du Passage (20 Galérie Véro-Dodat), from Nov. 17 to
Dec. 23. Under the title "Fugitif" are poetic and architectural images while
photographs of the fashion designer's collection of neo-Greek vases are entitled
"Les Vases de Ciboure."
"I did not want to choose fashion but
work that was less well known," says Passebon, referring to the large format,
one-of--a-kind images.
Always on the fashion beat, Colette (213
rue Saint Honoré) is showing "Dog Sits" until Nov. 27, the canine portraits of
Maarten Wetsema. Personal snapshots submitted to the store will be judged by a
panel of experts and the winners put on display at the end of the month.
