Photography Exhibition Galerie XII: Carole Bellaïche – 25 bd Beaumarchais

Galerie XII presents Carole Bellaïche: Bd de Beaumarchais, on the occasion of the release of the eponymous book by Editions Revelatoer.

Conceived as a stroll through the rooms of the apartment which marked the childhood and the first steps of the photographer, the exhibition gathers personal photographs, pages of album as well as clichés of the personalities which she made come in this place.

The apartment gave her her photographic style that she has kept until now. In this exhibition, there are young girls, flowers, carafes, windows, furniture and objects, backlighting, colors and black and white, actors and actresses, models. A jumble of this work between 1978 (she was 14) and 1990 when the family left the Bd. De Beaumarchais.

“I think of it as a human being” she always says.

As a teenager, Carole haunted movie theaters with her best friend, together they discovered photography. On Wednesday afternoon, with her father’s camera, Carole made Pascale pose. The camera is equipped with a long focal length, 85mm, the one used by the chief operators on the sets. Pascale plays, puts on her make-up, Carole photographs, the magic happens. In the bathroom, she learns to master the prints, searches for contrasts, deep blacks.

The summer of her 15th birthday, she is on vacation in Provence and meets François Truffaut. She showed him her box of prints, he looked at it and said “You are really a photographer”. The impetus is taken.

Bd de Beaumarchais, she multiplies the sessions with friends, neighbors. And then she became a professional, she was 17 years old, she offered actors portraits for their books. The word of mouth works, her reputation spreads. Juliette Binoche, Julie Delpy, Isabelle Huppert and many others will pass in front of her lens, always in the apartment. To discover between the lamps, the windows, the moldings, the armchairs, all these elements which make the apartment a character in its own right.