The Galerie Maeght exhibits Françoise Huguier as an extension to the museum exhibitions of the FRAC Occitanie Toulouse and the Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac. Photographer and adventurer, she explores, seeks, finds and brings back photographs and with it in her suitcases objects collected from the four corners of the globe. From the stifling heat during the crossing of Africa, to the gripping cold of Siberia through the intimacy of the Russian Kommunalki or the stunning modernity of South Korea, Françoise Huguier shares with us her fascination for objects from the world, witnesses of popular cultures. She emphasizes the connection they have with her photographic work.
Françoise Huguier, through her travels and encounters, collects objects. How could we qualify this set of objects? Some kind of folk art museum? A travel diary? A cabinet of curiosity? Or even a collection? These terms could be applied without any classical qualification being able to define the very essence of this assemblage. Everyday objects, objects of worship or objects of art and crafts, they exist by themselves and form a “bric-a-brac” or a “Zulu bazaar”, a temple of kitsch and folk art put together by the photographer.
Some of her objects were selected by Françoise Huguier to be exhibited and offered to collectors who acquire a photograph. “A photograph – an object”, a novel approach that intimately links the collector to the artist.
The selection of color photographs weaves an intertwining of themes that are dear to the photographer; Music, tattoos and masks, fashion or even religious worship … in short, anything that can arouse her interest in popular culture.
The exhibition is made up of 29 black and white vintage prints from her journey In the Footsteps of l’Afrique Fantome, the very first large-format print of a Bozo Fisherman on the Niger River, 17 color photographs and as many ‘objects gleaned by the insatiable photographer.
Françoise HUGUIER: photographs and objects
from October 15 to November 28, 2020
Galerie Maeght
42, rue du Bac 75007 Paris
