The Pavillon Populaire in Montpellier reopened its doors on December 2nd, 2025, after renovation, with a major exhibition devoted to Raymond Depardon. Entitled Extrême Hôtel, this new proposal plunges us into more than forty years of (voluntary) travel, wanderings and solitary shootings, in which the photographer explores the world at the pace of his walks. This exhibition continues the generous donation Depardon recently made to the Musée Fabre of Montpellier Méditerranée Métropole.
The title refers to a hotel in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where Depardon stayed on several occasions. This place is the symbolic anchor of a journey that embraces a large part of his color work. Bringing together nearly a hundred photographs made between 1978 and 2019, the exhibition is organized into series that reveal a lesser-known side of his work. Carthagène, Towns, Japan Express, Vertical Sud, Beyrouth—so many fragments of worlds in motion, oscillating between urban bustle, political tensions and suspended landscapes. These images bear witness to a precise and attentive, almost meditative gaze, able to capture both moments of life and shadowy areas.
Curated by Marie Perennès, curator and filmmaker, and Simon Depardon, the photographer’s son, the exhibition is also an opportunity to bring together some of his press publications. This corpus spans decades of current affairs, from the figure of Queen Elizabeth to the crises in the Gaza Strip, from the Olympic Games to conflict zones, right up to the Françoise Claustre affair. This selection highlights the diversity of subjects that have punctuated his career and his singular way of telling the real, keeping a distance from spectacle while staying as close as possible to the human. The Glasgow series is presented in an unprecedented format as a projection, restoring the full context of this emblematic commission. Added to this is a body of work never before exhibited: the last color work made in the United States in spring 2019. Using a large-format camera, Depardon captures the great plains of Texas, the roadsides of New Mexico, and deserted small American towns.
The photographic center of Montpellier therefore offers us, for this new beginning, an immersion in a way of seeing that is at once simple, humanist and deeply rooted in the geographies of the world. Depardon’s images, always marked by great restraint, invite us to travel differently, in a sensitive relationship to time and the places crossed. A way of reminding us that photography is as much about testimony as it is about personal experience.
Jean-Jacques Ader
Luce Lebart, a photography historian, has been appointed to lead the institution. She will take up her duties in spring 2026, succeeding Gilles Mora and his demanding program of original exhibitions. Exhibition « Extrême hôtel » from 2 December 2025 to 12 April 2026 at the Pavillon Populaire in Montpellier. https://pavillon-populaire.montpellier.fr/
