A life on the edge of the world where timelessness mingles with the universality of childhood. An artist in wrought iron, a photographer and the father of six children, Alain Labolle started a family album in 2007, when he was 39 years old. From his studio-shack, on an isolated property in the south of France, Alain Labolle started to observe and photograph his children’s carefree games. Without directing them, the father-photographer captured them at one with nature. The house, the field, the woods, the pond are so many open-air places where the earth’s natural powers seem to touch their young moving bodies.
Alain’s photos are like an elixir of youth. Children free and sometimes nude free of the weight of daily life .A delicate exercise in showing nudity in an age of growing puritanism. Like Sally Mann, without false modesty, Alain Laboile explores the flesh of his flesh such as it is. But contrary to the American artist, he reveals in their tremendous energy.
Jean-Paul Gavard-Perret
Jean-Paul Gavard-Perret is a poet, critic and lecturer in communications at the Université de Savoie, in France.
Alain Laboile, La tribu
From 12th January to4th March 2017
Maison des arts et de la culture de Créteil
1 Place Salvador Allende
94000 Créteil
France