The departure of the historic founder and director of the Maison Européenne de la Photographie, who left his place to Britain’s Simon Baker, heralds a new era at the Parisian institution. The Eye of Photography is celebrating him with interesting anecdotes.
March 31st, Jean-Luc Monterosso left the MEP. He will only be returning for board meetings. Simon Baker, his successor, is already decided and in place. Memories, memories… It was forty years ago exactly that I met Jean-Luc for the first time. With him and Photo, the magazine I was handling, we had some wonderful adventures together!
In 1978, it was in Orsay for his first exhibition 20 fois Paris. Two years later, with his long-time accomplice Joël Brard, who was the soul of every November, he launched the first Month of Photography. Bernadette Contensou, director of the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, offered him two fabulous spaces. He gave the first to Cartier-Bresson and offered the second to Photo. There we exhibited our first amateur competition with 100 large-format photos. The free exhibition was a success. The last night, an incredible nude was stolen. The artist was mad with joy. It was Philippe Garner, the auctioneer, who would officiate at Sotheby’s and Christie’s for forty-five years.
A few months later, we met in New York. Jean-Luc showed me two people: Bernard Wolf, a formidable street photographer who was one of the first victims of AIDS, and Sophie Elbaz, a young photographer, then the assistant of Ernestine Ruben, with whom Jean-Luc had a passionate love affair. Every night, the Roxy, a mythic nightclub at the time, witnessed their erotic encounters.
In 1982, Jean-Luc shared his passion for Helmut Newton and organized his first big retrospective at the Musée d’Art Moderne. In 1984, Guy Bourdin had just left Vogue. With Jean-Luc, we decided to get him the Grand Prix National de la Photographie endowed with a sum of 100,000 francs. We created a jury completely in Guy’s favor, with the exception of a notorious anti-Bourdin, who discovered from the very first ballot the total absence of his chances and left to go complain all over Paris. The check was sent to Guy. He returned it to us with these words: “Thank you for this lovely viennoiserie, but I’m diabetic.”
However, we, Jean-Luc and I, succeeded in our second attempt to help. This time it was Romeo Martinez, the mythic editor of the magazine Camera and a mentor to all. Our lair at 21 rue de Seine in Paris, which saw the all the world’s photographers pass through, was going to be put up for sale, and Romeo didn’t have one centime to buy it. The mobilization was amazing. Jean-Luc bought his library for the Maison Européenne which he was designing at the time, and Sotheby’s, through Philippe Garner, organized the sale of his collection. Romeo would remain until his death in his mythical place.
In 1987, with Eric Colmet-Daâge, the artistic director at Photo, we organized an exhibition at Bagatelle called Jardins secrets de photographs thanks to Jean-Luc, who was working with Françoise de Panafieu. It was an enormous challenge with not one single photo, but with paintings, sculptures, drawings, and collages provided by Cartier-Bresson, Bailey, Donovan, Lartigue, Brassai, Mapplethorpe… Jean-Luc came during the install, accompanied by Keichi Tahara. “I do sand installations. Can I make one for you?” said the artist. That’s how he created the pre-installation that he would install ten years later in front of the MEP.
The last moment was with Roger Thérond, the eye of Paris Match and one of the greatest contemporary collectors to have ever lived. A couple months before Roger’s death, Jean-Luc entrusted him with the entire MEP for his exhibition Une passion française.
There we have some memories of a very beautiful time. Jean-Luc is going to open a contemporary art center in the Champagne region. He doesn’t want to stop. In fact, he can’t. It was the clairvoyant Madame Alberte who told him when he was a boy: “You will have a fabulous life. You will do lots and lots of traveling. Why? I don’t know exactly. I see a lot of paper squares and rectangles!”
Lots of love, Jean-Luc.
Jean-Jacques Naudet
