From February 10th to April 22nd , the Hôtel Départemental des Arts in Toulon, France, is showing some of Florence and Damien Bachelot’s collection through a selection of one hundred and fifty photographs that explore the theme of “Des villes et des hommes (of towns and men)”.
With their interest in the real, the urban, its evolution and its complexity, an important part of the Bachelots’ collection is in part a reflection on the place of man in society and in the city. It is often images that are organised around metropolises, architecture, walking in the street, and the perception of modern space.
For this exhibition in Toulon, the two curators, Françoise Docquiert and Ricardo Vazquez, selected close to one hundred and fifty images from the couple’s collection. Humanist photography, be it French or American, is certainly well represented here, but the public will also find works stemming from American street photography, reportage and contemporary photography. With, particularly: Diane Arbus, Brassaï, Gilles Caron, Bruce Davidson, Elliott Erwitt, Mario Giacomelli, Harry Gruyaert, Saul Leiter…
Des villes et des hommes invites you to browse through a history of photography on a topic that is difficult to grasp, that of men trying to find a place in a changing urban space. The title, reminiscent of John Steinbeck’s famous work Of Mice and Men – America, often more rural than urban, always gives a central place to man. It undeniably lies in this double dimension of the social and aesthetic preoccupations of French and American photography.
Each of the photographers had the distinction of anticipating the city in their own way. All extract successive stories, where man’s place is intact, treating their images as a corrosive weapon against the trivialisation of the world. Some participate in the preparation of a dark and oppressive vision of the metropolis. The American Weegee above all, photographed the New York night, its special crowd, its crimes and disasters. Often arriving at the scene ahead of the police, he always preserved his empathy for the urban victims who were among the poorest, who often lived in complete isolation. Others preferred to change the image of documentary photography by looking at the margins and from them, creating a sort of counter-utopia. Diane Arbus, with Boy with a Straw Hat Waiting to March in a Pro‐War Parade 1967, NYC, 1970, presents in a single print a description of nationalist America. Wanting the opposite of social photography from her elders, with her front-on portraits, Arbus revealed the absolute strangeness and uniqueness of each one, and foreshadowed Nan Goldin and Cindy Sherman.
Mario Giacomelli, more poet than photographer, by allegiance to his past as an engraver, always favoured black which he used as a colour; he spoke of beyond black. His prints testify to an abrupt view, grating and ironic, never malicious. Proof of it is in his series on seminarians, tender and comical, after a text by David Maria Turoldo and of which the Bachelots acquired a gelatine silver print from 1963.
Less numerous are those who illustrated the image of a generous city in the manner of Brassaï, who from 1930, found in photography a means of representing daily life such as he himself lived. He shows us a mysterious image of Paris, magnifying the ordinariness of some human figures lit by the filter of fog or rain, reinforcing a shape by backlighting or the glare of a flash. Doisneau endlessly brought a story of glances and benevolent irony to the Paris streets and their inhabitants, which made him a “documenter” of ordinary life in the second half of the twentieth century.
Other prints shown in the exhibition Des villes et des hommes recall political acts, events and even the coercive dimension of power. They show the negotiations that enable us to establish ourselves as individuals in relation to others, the group and society. Luc Delahaye’s large format print A Rally of the Opposition Candidate Alexander Milinkevich, refering to the Belarusian political opposition, is the first exception to the rule of black and white imposed by the Bachelots. In the foreground a sea of anonymous faces and in the distance, the buildings. Delahaye consciously neutralises some details by simplifying the values and reconsidering the framing. He builds a real alphabet that ensures a certain level of cohesion between the elements and gives them a critical function. And Mike Smith, and his iconic print: Martin Luther King, Selma to Montgomery March, 1965, as much by the strength of the subject as by the amazing quality of the shot. Bruce Davidson and his series – East 100th Street – well represented in the Bachelot collection, on the inhabitants and life of a street in the black neighbourhood of Harlem, often described as a social photojournalist, offers a work on the deprived and outcasts.
Among the photographs being shown, we also find those by Robert Frank with his series Les Américains, whose use of images shot with a Leica was questioned at the time and met with a mixed reception. Josef Koudelka and his images of wandering. Elliot Erwitt and the always serious humour of his shots. Dorothea Lange with an exceptional print of the first migrant camp in Marysville in California. Joel Meyerowitz who, since 1970, prefers colour and the New York streets where he originated. As well as the deserted places of Adrien Boyer, a young photographer and a recent entry to the Bachelot collection.
Among all of their acquisitions, the Bachelots have a special relationship with the American Saul Leiter, another step towards colour. With more than forty of his images, they have contributed to the recognition of this great photographer. From the 1950s, Saul Leiter has given the New York streets a special status, perhaps with his use of colour film with which he plays as Mark Rothko, whom he admires, might with paint. He liked to declare himself sensitive to a certain ambiguity, to a certain confusion in his images tracing intelligently, justly and authentically a language of reality that is very unconventional. Florence and Damien Bachelot also support the work of the photojournalist Gilles Caron, who disappeared in Cambodia, and of whose work they have assembled a special collection. Like that of Henri Cartier-Bresson, Caron’s photography represents the epitome and the peak of an aesthetic born at the end of the 1920s, based on black and white and small format. His application to war reporting produced images both mysterious and easy to read, with an unequalled evocative power.
Des villes et des hommes : un regard sur la collection Florence et Damien Bachelot
10th February to 22nd April 2018
Hôtel Départemental des Arts – Centre d’art du Var
236 Boulevard Général Leclerc
83000 Toulon
France
