This is sad news: the closure of Isabelle Wisniak’s gallery in Arles. For 4 years, Isabelle has presented about twenty artists working on our close friends the animals. We present one of her last exhibitions: that of Charlotte Dumas.
To celebrate its 50th anniversary, Royal Canin pays tribute to the relationship of men and dogs, everyday heroes, with Compagnons, two exhibitions of photographs by the Dutch artist Charlotte Dumas, who has always been passionate about this relationship.
FLAIR Galerie presented, from September 19 to November 24, 2018, a selection of her photographs made between 2009 and 2011, as well as those extracted from an assignment by Royal Canin this year. These were exhibited in parallel on the gates of the Summer Garden, boulevard des Lices, from September 19 to October 3, 2018. The visitor discovered portraits of dogs and cats, companions of everyday life in the service of human.
On this occasion, a book was published by Glénat.
Photographing is going to meet each other, the photographers often say. With Charlotte Dumas, the formula takes on a particular meaning because her models are not men but animals.
However, in 2011, when she chose to portray the dogs that took part in the search for survivors in the rubble of September 11 in New York and the Pentagon, she treated them as equals. In fact, Charlotte Dumas seeks first to know them better, in the manner of those documentary authors who carry out an interview with their models before photographing them. The goal ? to discover what they became ten years later, having been struck by their bravery – “The pictures of these dogs published in the newspapers in 2001 are deeply inked in my memory” – and capture their character and soul to better highlight their personality.
Thus Charlotte Dumas avoids any superfluous effects both in terms of staging and decorum. In the house of their masters, it is in the four corners of the United States and in their daily lives that she went to photograph them. A form of natural simplicity that helps to humanize them. Guinness, Brittany or Orion II face the photographer, eyes looking at her lens, both touching and dignified …
Whether for her personal work or assignment, such as this year for Royal Canin, Charlotte Dumas did not choose her models by chance. They are “working” dogs, whether they are in the service of a fire brigade or the blind … More than companions, they are heroes!
Sophie Bernard. July 2018
Here are the exhibitions that FLAIR Galerie has presented.
2018
Return to Eden, drawings, embroidery and ceramics by Salvatore Puglia
Compagnons, photographies by Charlotte Dumas
Le souffle, photographies by Laurence Leblanc
Grandeur Nature, paints and drawings by Caroline Desnoëttes
2017
Portraits officiels, photographies by Sylvie Huet
Drôles d’oiseaux, drawings and collages by Pierre Desfons
Le théâtre de l’esprit, photographies by Roger Ballen
Mon premier cercle, paints by Anouk Grinberg
2016
L’homme animal, sculptures and paints by Roland Roure
Jeux, inks and watercolors by Lucio Fanti
Zoom, photographies by Dolorès Marat
Dogland, illustrations by Lucy Marshall
Impatience, photographies by Jean-François Spricigo
2015
A special breed, paints by Jenifer Corker, sculptures by Holy Smoke
All Friends, drawings and paints by Baltasar Dürrbach
Tout Bêtement, photographies by Nicolas Guilbert, sculptures by Marie Christophe
Le loup et les sept chevreaux, illustrations by Christian Roux
Eden, photographies by Salvatore Puglia
