Galerie XII Paris presents Carole Bellaïche: 25 Boulevard 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 brings together personal photographs, album pages as well as snapshots of the personalities she invited to come to this place. The apartment gave her a photographic style that she has kept until now.
In this exhibition, there are young girls, flowers, decanters, windows, furniture and objects, backdrops, colors and black and white, actors and actresses, models.
A pell-mell of this work between 1978 (she was 14) and 1990 when the family left Boulevard Beaumarchais. “I think of it like a human being,” she always says.
As a teenager, Carole Bellaïche haunted cinemas with her best friend and together they discovered photography. On Wednesday afternoon, with her father’s camera, Carole made Pascale pose. The camera had a long focal length, 85mm, the one used by chief operators on sets. Pascale posed, Carole dressed her, applied makeup, and photographed; the magic happened. In the bathroom, she learned to master prints, looked for contrasts, deep blacks. In the summer of her 15th birthday, she was on vacation in Provence and ran into François Truffaut. She showed him her box of prints, he looked and said “You are really a photographer”. Momentum was taken.
At 25 boulevard Beaumarchais, she multiplied the photoshoots with her friends from high school. Then she became professional, thanks to the support of Dominique Issermann who sends her first actors for their books. Word of mouth worked, her reputation started spreading. In front of her lens, in the apartment passed, Juliette Binoche, Julie Delpy, Jacques Dutronc, Emmanuelle Béart and many others. To be discovered between the lamps, the windows, the moldings, the armchairs, all these elements that made the apartment a character in its own right…
Exhibition:
Carole Bellaïche: 25 Boulevard Beaumarchais
from November 19, 2021 to January 28, 2022
Gallery XII Paris
14 rue des Jardins Saint-Paul
75004 Paris
Book :
Carole Bellaïche: 25 Boulevard Beaumarchais
192 pages
249 color and black & white photographs
210 x 290 cm
price: 42 € incl.
