Pierre de Fenoÿl, born in 1945, devoted his life to photography. Driven by an irresistible passion, he worked actively to ensure that photography would be recognised by institutions in the 1970s. He defended both anonymous 19th-century photography and major photographers such as Brassaï, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Duane Michales, Édouard Boubat and André Kertész, as well as the young photographers of his generation.
But Pierre de Fenoÿl also created his own important body of work . His photography took him first to India in the footsteps of Henri Cartier-Bresson, and then to the United States, Paris and Tuscany. His growing desire to devote himself entirely to taking pictures, which was a spiritual and metaphysical quest for him, led him to leave Paris and his institutional responsibilities behind. After a trip to Egypt in the footsteps of Maxime Du Camp, he settled in the Tarn in 1984 and devoted himself to landscape, notably as part of the DATAR photographic mission. He quickly achieved recognition as a member of the French school that, in the 1980s, included photographers such as Arnaud Claass, Magdi Senadji, Bernard Plossu, Daniel Boudinet, Keiichi Tahara, Jun Shiraoka, Christian Milovanoff, Holger Trulzsch and Denis Roche.
Pierre de Fenoÿl was haunted by the question of time and memory in photography, defining himself as a “chronophotographer”. Although sometimes close to the “creative photography” of his time, his work was actually more meditative in spirit, fed by Saint Augustine’s Confessions and the act of walking, and inspired by nature. His landscapes devoid of figures and impregnated with a mysterious silence sometimes evoke the landscapes of Flemish or Italian painters, as well as the first masters of photography.
On 4 September 1987, Pierre de Fenoÿl died suddenly from a heart attack. His wife, Véronique de Fenoÿl, a student of the photographer Jean-Pierre Sudre and her husband’s printer, has kept his work alive and preserved his archives, with the help of their two children.
The retrospective at the Château de Tours aims to show the depth and diversity of Pierre de Fenoÿl’s work and to retrace his career with the help of material from the family archives, some of which has never be seen before. Combining prints, documents, screenings, publications and films, it will provide the perfect opportunity to rediscover the elegant and majestic work of a photographer who loved black and white photography. It will explore his aim to capture what lies beyond the subject, revealing the uniqueness and coherence of a timeless body of work, produced during the 1980s, a prolific and creative period in the history of photography.
“In this journey that is more initiatory than artistic, the important thing is to look at time passing, not to spend one’s time looking. In this quest through the real, my memory is my style. Memory is an image, memory is the image of time,”
Pierre de Fenoÿl, 1986.
EXHIBITION
Pierre de Fenoÿl (1945-1987). An imaginary geography
From June 20th to October 31st, 2015
Jeu de Paume – Château de Tours
25 avenue André Malraux
37000 Tours
France
+33 (0)2 47 21 61 95
Tuesday – Sunday 2pm – 6pm
Free Entrance
http://www.jeudepaume.org
UPCOMING
Pierre de Fenoÿl Paysages conjugués
From September 5 to December 31st, 2015
Galerie Le Réverbère
38 Rue Burdeau
69001 Lyon
France
Tél. : +33 (0)4 72 00 06 72
http://www.galerielereverbere.com
BOOK
« Pierre de Fenoÿl. An imaginary geography »
Texts by Virginie Chardin, Jacques Damez, Peter Galassi.
Éditions Jeu de Paume / Xavier Barral.
240 pages 24 x 28 cm
144 photographs
Price : 50 euros
ISBN : 9782365110730
http://exb.fr
