As often with exhibitions that are most dear to my heart, it all starts with a strong childhood memory… With Catherine Deneuve it was first of all her voice… a unique voice, reassuring, clear and soft, which told the stories of Disney cartoons on LP.
Her seduction and her acting, I only discovered them later, my next shock being “the Predators” alongside David Bowie and Susan Sarandon. There is no need to list here the films that have marked us, we all have a special relationship with Catherine Deneuve. Her unique gaze, her blondness, the fantasies and other projections she inspires…her relationship with artists, with fashion, her friendship with Yves Saint-Laurent.
The purpose of this exhibition is an invitation to celebrate the beauty, the magic of cinema and the fierce freedom of an actress and fascinating woman, far from this frozen and distant image that she refutes. I remember having met her a few years ago, with one of her friends, driving a red convertible, they had parked any which way like two teenagers skipping school, and had thrown themselves into the restaurant where I was, eating voraciously fries dipped in sauce. Everything is said in this moment! I loved this joie de vivre, this fantasy and this taste for delicious irreverence.
It is also a pleasure for a photography lover to organize such an exhibition: this one is not didactic, on the contrary and as often at the Gallery, these are only personal choices, encounters, discoveries, with the desire not to freeze the actress in one era and to propose several periods of her life.
We start with images of the brunette Catherine Dorléac with her sister Françoise, then the blonde Catherine hatches and throughout the films and her personal journey is transformed into this sublime icon, whose beauty and presence never ceases to fascinate us again and again. always thanks to this unique magic that makes a woman a star!
Julia Gragnon
Catherine Deneuve
from June 22 to October 1, 2023
Opening Thursday, June 22 at 6 p.m.
La Galerie de L’Instant
46 rue de Poitou
75003 Paris
www.lagaleriedelinstant.com
Catherine Deneuve
Exhibition from June 21 to September 8, 2023
Hôtel Lutetia
45 Boulevard Raspail
75006 Paris
www.lagaleriedelinstant.com
