They say that Jean-Philippe Charbonnier has been forgotten by history. The influential Edward Steichen excluded him from the exhibition The Family of Man (1955), saying that Charbonnier lacked, “idealism and faith in man,” while his compatriots—Cartier-Bresson, Sabine Weiss, Doisneau, Boubat—were invited to participate. Today Charbonnier is the subject of an exhibition at the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris (MAM) and a book published by Séguier, written by Emmanuelle de l’Ecotais, which retraces his exploration of the streets of Paris and the daily lives of its citizens.
Charbonnier, who died in 2004, saw things in an ironic, dramatic way, unlike his so-called “humanist” contemporaries, who were quick to forgive and tried to make the world seem better than it was. Roland Barthes considered the whole generation too tender and optimistic, but they were the ones that dictated the laws of photography, and although Charbonnier never made it to the inner circle, he stayed around its edges, and founded the remarkable revue Réalités with Edouard Boubat. Charbonnier was not a “humanist” photographer. He was a realist, resisting complacency and compromise, but whose photographs have the same emotional power because they are raw, singular and authentic. His allies included André Kertesz, Gisèle Freund and Agathe Gaillard whom he married and who opened the first photography gallery in Paris in 1975, which would welcome other discreet but unusual photographer, like Hervé Guibert and Manuel Alvarez Bravo.
Read the full article on the French version of L’Oeil.
BOOK
L’œil de Paris
Jean-Philippe Charbonnier
Curator: Emmanuelle de l’Ecotais
Editions Séguier
Format: 15x21cm
79 photos – 104 pages
ISBN: 9782840496939
Prix: 10.00 €
http://www.editions-seguier.fr
EXHIBITION
L’œil de Paris
Jean-Philippe Charbonnier
Until February 14th, 2015
Crédit Municipal de Paris
55 rue des Francs Bourgeois
75004 Paris
01 44 61 64 00
www.creditmunicipal.fr
