Manon Renonciat-Laurent, Project Manager at the Fondation Hermès
The foundation was created to defend the expertise and artistic production in various artistic fields. In 2013, the foundation committed itself for six years, that is, three cycles of the Prix Henri Cartier-Bresson. The goal is to help artists in a field where production is a long and costly process. Photography isn’t the only field in which the foundation is involved: of its six exhibition spaces across the world, only the two in New York and Bern, Switzerland, feature photography.
Hermès has a long history with photography, but it is necessary to distinguish Hermès the company, which hires photographers for its stores and has a photography collection founded by Pierre-Alexis Dumas, from the Hermès foundation, whose acquisitions would go, if the foundation were to disappear, to another foundation with similar goals.
There is no “artificial link” with the Fondation HCB. The partnership came about naturally and is based on human activities. Luxury is not a “separate” activity and the Fondation Hermès is not there to justify the company’s action, even if its values are “naturally” the same as the company’s: techniques for creation and its transmission are the levers of economy and culture.
