Today, Friday November 6th 2015, the 5th Photo Saint Germain festival opens, with almost 50 exhibitions in the heart of Paris. To mark the occasion we interviewed the two women who direct this event, Virginie Huet and Aurélia Marcadier. The former was in charge of the Mois de la Photo 2014 and is an independent journalist, and the latter is an independent curator and co-founder of TEMPLE, an exhibition space concerned by contemporary photography.
You’ve gone back to the Photo Saint-Germain festival for the 2015 event. What are the major innovations (apart from the venues) of this event ?
Obviously the first thing was the re-thinking of the visual identity. It was entrusted to the studio De-On-Air which understood our expectations. We placed high demand this year on two new editorial media: the official map and the magazine Simone.
Also, we didn’t want to give the participants a particular theme. It seemed essential to us that the quality of the exhibition projects be the sole criterion for selection. In this sense we wanted to surround ourselves with a jury responsible for giving a verdict on the candidates’ submissions.
With five personalities, each representing a discipline in the world of the image: Jeanne Fouchet-Nahas, deputy editor-in-chief of special editions for Connaissance des Arts; Caroline Geeraud, art buyer; Hélène Giannecchini, writer and independent curator; Luce Lebart, director of collections at Société Française de Photographie; Chantal Nedjib, founder and president of the communications consultants L’Image par l’image.
Another innovation: we gave a free hand to Laurent Champoussin for the official image with the sole directive that he deliver to us a vision of Saint-Germain-des-Prés.
He chose to pay homage to Helmut Newton who had, forty years earlier, captured the atmosphere of the Rue Visconti. we thought a lot of this idea of a contemporary resonance with a historic photograph.
The association Photo Saint- Germain-des-Près, the initiator of this event, is presided by Christophe Lunn. He mentions that, historically, the Saint-Germain district has an intimate relationship with photography, from Germaine Krull to Man Ray by way of André Jammes, one of the greatest collectors of photography. Did you construct your route using it as your inspiration?
It seemed necessary to us, for didactic reasons, to recall the connection between the history of the neighborhood and the photographic medium. Notably, we bring up this relationship in our magazine Simone with an article by the late Harry Lunn on the gallery Tex-Braun. We particularly want to participate in the new cultural dynamic brought by places like Le Plac’art Photo and the galleries Eric Mouchet, RueVisconti or Madé. The left bank remains a strong area in the Parisian geography in spite of the attention which, for the last few years, has been concentrated on the north-east and the periphery.
FESTIVAL
Photo Saint Germain
From 07 to 22 November 2015
Quartier Saint Germain
75006 Paris
France
http://www.photosaintgermain.com
