Serge Assier, The Madman of Cinema – Triptych, part 1 by Thierry Maindrault

He is one of the last living dinosaurs of French photography.
Our collaborator Thierry Maindrault pays him a tribute in 3 parts!
JJN

I have known Serge Assier for several years, our paths cross regularly during the Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie which are held every summer in Arles. For almost forty years, this exceptional photographer has presented each year, autonomously and independently, his various works, always at his own expense. His greatness of soul led him to very often combine in his exhibitions the interesting works of some colleagues of other styles and approaches.

Serge is one of the last great photographers of the moment. This generation, with this particular and exceptional know-how, born with the twentieth century, died out with the end of the same century.

Serge Assier, is a name unknown to everyone except true photography professionals and circles linked to the world of communication (artists, press, police officers, magistrates and creators). However, everyone has seen, or looked at one of his photographs which have gone around the world, at least once in their life. He was always there where he was needed, exactly when he was needed (we don’t think in days, but in tenths of a second). For information, we were not yet in our instantaneous universe when the click on a highly automated robot device immediately sends the shot to a newspaper printer. No, it was the time, the film to be loaded, the manual adjustment of the camera without a light meter (often also with flash), the development of the film, the enlargement-printing of the image, the race to belinograph, to be the first testimony to photoengraving. In this frantic, albeit vital, race, Serge was almost always the winner. The adrenaline of the field was essential, on a daily basis, for this curious, unpredictable person at all times.

For twenty years, the young photography enthusiast became the essential image operator at the Cannes Film Festival. His nerve, his verve, his personality will make him the communications pivot of the Festival. Every night, his images flew everywhere to make the front page of the morning newspapers.

His mastery, as unique as it is essential, of photographic technique allowed him to put forward his delirious imagination to seek and obtain unique images. Often, with the complicity, a posteriori, of its prestigious models: great international stars of the World of Cinema.

How was this young photographer able to obtain, during a Homeric “showdown”, the exclusivity of the portrait of Isabelle Adjani, on the roof of the Palace, with Le Suquet as the backdrop? How did the ingenious character have Jerry Lewis taken away, without his knowledge, by the French police? His Cannes and unpublished feats of arms remain numerous.

His pranks and his determination allowed him, in a few years, to become friends with the greatest actors and directors of the seventh art.

A portraitist in situation, his reporter aspect always remains underlying, with unannounced, but consented, shots in the privacy of his subjects more accustomed to worked public images.

From 1980, the world of the Festival was transformed and regulated, with the appearance of intermediaries (artistic agents, image directors, press officers), freedom of expression and photographic creativity became oppressed by publicly correct and financial constraints. Serge Assier, the “darling” of many stars, refuses to continue traveling from Marseille to Cannes. The beginnings of an enslavement of our photographic images and information were emerging.

2025. Il est impensable que Serge, unanimement reconnu par ses pairs photographes et les grands auteurs créatifs, du siècle dernier, soit injustement méprisé par des Rencontres dites officielles, alors qu’il prépare sa quarantième (et parait-elle dernière) exposition pour 2025.

Thierry Maindrault

www.sergeassier.com