The Galerie Camera Obscura presents the group exhibition ANIMALIA – The monkey and the swallow. Didier Brousse introduces it thus:
Having a glimpse of wild beasts – dolphin, otter, heron, fox, viper – makes my day. When I meet a new face, I do not rest until I have found its animal, its counterpart in physiognomy in the immense universes of Cuvier, Fabre or Linnaeus. These similarities, I do not know why, reassure me.
This kinship with the animal world that I feel deeply goes back to the distant days of the Ark where we lived rather tightly packed but all together and where, during a thousand interminable days of rain, solid connivances were established. (Nicolas Bouvier, Le Hibou et la Baleine, éditions ZOE, 1993)
Nicolas Bouvier, in his poetic and smiling way, says so well how dear the animal world is to us, how much it touches us (see the innate enthusiasm of children for animals!).
He also notes the separation, the loss of the old proximity between man and the other members of the animal kingdom.
Photographers, like fabulists, sometimes try to reconnect these threads. They show us that this proximity has not completely disappeared and that everything is a matter of gaze and sensitivity.
Animals are omnipresent in the work of Michel Vanden Eeckhoudt and Pentti Sammallahti and they occupy an important place in Yamamoto Masao.
They also appear in Paolo Roversi, portrayed as humans and Sarah Moon’s world is populated by birds, elephants and dogs.
Their wounded humanity touches us in Michael Ackerman and Bernard Plossu captures the encounters they offer us, fleeting, light, and full of life.
We had to gather this menagerie one day and see what dialogue all these beasts could have between them.
This is the project of this exhibition, imagined for pleasure.
Didier Brousse
Photographers featured:
Michael Ackerman
Michel Vanden Eeckhoudt
Sarah Moon
Bernard Plossu
Paolo Roversi
Pentti Sammallahti
Yamamoto Masao
ANIMALIA – Le singe et l’hirondelle
January 17 – March 8, 2025
Galerie Camera Obscura
268, boulevard Raspail
75014 Paris
www.galeriecameraobscura.fr
