” La grâce et le feu”, a book published by Kulturalis and the exhibition at the Villa Tamaris in La Seyne-sur-Mer, is a forty-year retrospective of photographer Gérard Uféras‘s work.
Presented across three floors of the prestigious Villa Tamaris, it retraces the photographer’s career in nine stages and features nearly 300 photos and videos.
Photography was an early vocation for Gérard Uféras. From the age of eight, the young boy, born in Paris, used the cameras his father collected. At eleven, accompanied by his two best friends, they decided to discover Paris through its museums. This two-year journey would mark the beginning of a passion for art that remains with him ever since an permeates all his work. In 1984, he began working regularly with the newspaper Libération, for which he produced numerous reportages and which organized his first exhibition. He subsequently published regularly in the French and international press. In 1986, he participated in the creation of the Vu agency, an agency for artists, then in 1993 joined the Rapho agency, where he met Willy Ronis, one of his first influences, along with Henri Cartier-Bresson and André Kertsz. He formed a close friendship with the great humanist photographer.
Text by Gérard Uféras:
My father, David, was a wonderful storyteller. He captivated with his storytelling skills, his sense of humor, his intelligence, and his profound humanity. When friends were invited to our house, I loved nothing more than to slip under the family table, and while I played, he would recount his adventures as a resistance fighter during the war. And I learned about the world… full of dangers but also of fraternity and wonders, as the bird sings so beautifully to its young in The King and the Mockingbird. The five of us lived in a tiny two-room apartment that then took on the size of the universe. Along with my discovery of art in museums, this, I think, is the deep source of my passion for photography.
I’m always amazed by the ability of a photograph, an inert, two-dimensional object, to tell the world. A great photo is a bit like Aladdin’s lamp: you rub it against your retina, and suddenly a genie emerges. He tells us a story, transports us, opens our imagination and our sensitivity. And if the photographer’s relationship with reality is sensitive and honest, this photo informs us about the world and our humanity with the depth and complexity of a great novel. And then, a great image is always the trace of an emotion; it can only be born if we take a sensitive look at the world and our contemporaries; freshness doesn’t like habits.
Photography is a language, it is part of the history of forms, it is of its time and carries within it the heritage of all past generations. This language is made to be seen, I always make images for someone, even if I do not know them, it is a sharing, an act of love. I wish to share my wonders The beauty that is so often decried today is part of nature, it is one of the conditions of our survival as a species, it carries within it the notion of love.
For a long time I didn’t dare to call myself a photographer, I found it illegitimate, and later, having gained confidence, I didn’t think I was an artist. Artists have inspired me so much, and I owe them some of the encounters that have changed my life. I now know that art is not superfluous, it is essential to humanity, it participates in the questioning that man asks himself about life, it is an aspiration for understanding, transmission and transcendence. It is an emanation of our humanity. We need art as we need oxygen.
When I was a child, I collected marbles, those little objects shaped like our planet. I would take them out of my pocket and observe them in wonder. Doisneau said that, for him, one of the greatest qualities a photographer must have is to believe in miracles despite all logic. I continue to take photographs, I continue to be amazed by the world and the beings who inhabit it… and each little miracle is a marble I slip into my pocket. I am happy that this book and this exhibition give me the opportunity to share them.
Gérard Uféras
Gérard Uféras : La grâce et le feu
Until April 27, 2020
Villa Tamaris
295 av de la Grande Maison
83500 La Seyne-sur-Mer
Open Wednesday to Sunday from 1:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.
Free admission
https://www.villatamaris.fr/fr
