Pierre Coppey is the head of VINCI, the French highway company. Vinci is one of founding partners of Le BAL and the sponsor of the exhibition S’il y a lieu, je pars avec vous. It is wonderful and showcases the richness, humor, diversity and creativity of artists like Sophie Calle, Antoine d’Agata and Julien Magre, among others. The exhibition is also a successful example of collaboration between a sponsor like VINCI and the photographers. “Patronage at VINCI serves as a bridge between the company and the art world. We have supported Le BAL and its director, Diane Dufour, since the project’s inception in 2006. She can be a perfectionist and a pain in the ass, but her process and the space are perfectly matched to Vinci’s cultural policies: interest in photography, contemporary visions of diverse and off-beat personalities, and poetry.”
Coppey says little about his relationship with photography: his first camera at 12, a passion for Magnum photographers, an admiration for the advertisements Delpire shot for Citroen and DS in the 1960s and 1970s, and a few great memories of a campaign with Josef Koudelka in Prague. Today sponsors play an essential role. Long ignored and rarely thanked, they have become key players in art and its distribution, replacing the institutions, ministers, museums, publishing houses and magazines who cannot or will not get involved. That is the reality of the situation today.
