Until May 6, Polka Galerie presents Welcome to Paradise, the new exhibition by Philippe Chancel.
“I wanted to realize, to see for myself, that we are indeed in this world.” – Philippe Chancel
Nature is no exception. It is another victim of this forced march towards prosperity that the photographer describes. In Flint (2015), this city in the United States once renowned for its flourishing economy, the population today suffers from a crime rate that is breaking records in a context of chaotic deindustrialization. Between 2011 and 2014, “the reporter without a newspaper”, to use the expression of Michel Poivert, also crisscrosses the bruised landscapes of Japan, Afghanistan and the West Bank.
Since 1982, Philippe Chancel has sought to photograph the beauty of disaster. He goes where the ideologies that destroy the world survive and flourish. Among his travels, between fascination and repulsion: places apart and secrets, impenetrable. But also these “most rotten corners of the planet” where men suffer the wrath of nature, when it is not the opposite. “When man begins to destroy himself through his ecosystem and his environment, we must sound the alarm.” The Welcome to Paradise exhibition digs into the visual memory of Philippe Chancel, in search of some of the most eloquent reports by this documentary filmmaker who has set himself the “impossible challenge” of diagnosing the ills of our planet. All evils.
Philippe Chancel : Welcome to Paradise
Public opening Thursday, March 9, 6-8:30 p.m. in the presence of the artist
Polka Galerie
Cour de Venise
12, rue Saint-Gilles
75003 Paris
https://www.polkagalerie.com/
