While his “badminton player” remains visible at the MUCEM until Monday, December 9th at the heart of the “Paradis naturistes” exhibition, Espace CRICO welcomes the Swiss artist Michael von Graffenried and his itinerant space ESPACE MVG until November 3rd with “Nu au Paradis”. A unique opportunity to rediscover exceptional work on naturism.
For more than 10 years, between 1987 and 2001, Michael von Graffenried immersed himself in the daily life of one of the oldest naturist associations in the world. The photos reflect a life similar to that of everyone else: residents do their shopping, exercise, they dance. But nudity alone is insufficient for the “friends of light,” who aspire to the improvement and ennoblement of man. So, they don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t eat meat. It is this affirmed naturism that the photographer has preciously captured, adopted over time by the “Schweizerische Lichtfreunde” (“Friends of Light”) residents of the “Die Neue Zeit” (“The New Time”) camp, in Thielle , on the shores of Lake Neuchâtel, in Switzerland.
Michael von Graffenried remained the first outsider photographer to pass the doors of the association. The series “Nude in Paradise” is the fruit of this work, which was the subject of a book in 1997 published by Dewi Lewis in Great Britain, and of several exhibitions – in Paris, New York and Montpellier in particular. One of the photos in this series, “The badminton player”, is one of the key work of the exhibition “Paradis naturistes”, which is being held at the MUCEM until Monday December 9th. The silver print of the period stands out both for its composition and its size (298 cm x 108 cm).
In order to share the rest of his work on naturism with the Marseille public, Espace CRICO is delighted to invite Michael von Graffenried to install his itinerant space ESPACE MVG in its premises (18 rue Farjon) from October 10th to November 3rd. “The first hour spent in the simplest device was difficult,” he remembers, “but I got used to it pretty quickly. Despite everything, it was forbidden to take photos and a wall surrounded the area. It was only after several interviews that I got the green light. I had to convince each and every one. Many residents could not afford for relatives, neighbors and work colleagues to find out where they were spending the summer. I was not able to immortalize, for example, the open-air service of the undressed priest on Sunday. »
Born in 1957, photographer Michael von Graffenried comes from photojournalism. Today he devotes himself to long-term projects using different media supports. His images, exhibited in galleries and museums in France and Switzerland, as well as in New York, Algiers, Hong Kong and Beirut, are part of the funds of the National Library in Paris, the Swiss Foundation for Photography in Winterthur and Photo Élysée in Lausanne. He has published several works, including Naked in Paradise (Éditions Dewi Lewis, 1997), Algeria, Photographs of a War Without Images (Éditions Hazan, 1998), Cocainelove (Éditions Benteli, 2005), Bierfest (Éditions Steidl, 2014) and Our Town (Éditions Steidl, 2021). In 2002, the 90-minute documentary film “War without images – Algeria, I know you know”, co-directed with Mohammed Soudani, was presented at the Locarno Film Festival. Michael von Graffenried received the insignia of Knight of the French Order of Arts and Letters in 2006 and the Erich Salomon Prize 2010. After René Burri and Robert Frank, he is the third Swiss to be awarded by the German Photography Society.
Curation Marie-Anne Kurdy-Dayer
ESPACE MVG presents
Michael von Graffenried : « Nu au paradis »
Until November 3, 2024
Espace CRICO
18 rue Farjon
13001 Marseille
An exceptional evening of dialogue between Michael von Graffenried and MUCEM chief curator Amélie Lavin will be held on Friday, November 1 at 7 p.m.
