Back to black is a collective exhibition bringing together the twenty members of the MYOP agency around the practice of black and white and giving the floor to photographers. The exhibition was conceived and shown for the first time on the occasion of MYOP in Arles 2021, Galerie Henri Comte.
“Since its generalization in the press from the end of the 1980s, color photography has become a standard, reinforced by the appearance of digital. However, we have chosen to focus on ‘black’ with a selection of heterogeneous images, brought together by the close link that MYOP photographers maintain with this practice that has become marginal but remains essential.
Black and white, through the independence and freedom of treatment it provides, through the wealth of printing techniques, represents an ideal field of experimentation, often very artisanal, often solitary. The laboratory is a place of introspection.
Black and white is also the crucible of our visual references. The most cited are Josef Koudelka, Walker Evans, Robert Franck, William Klein… All in black and white. In an agency that claims the diversity of writing, it is about a common culture, a point of reference, roots and a source of contemporary inspiration.
From the texts that accompany this exhibition emerges a visceral attachment to a practice which in turn makes it possible to offer an intimate refuge during life upheavals, a reappropriation of the medium when weariness sets in, a strong and ambitious choice. on subjects that photographers consider important to them, a personal way of seeing differently.
The printing technique is also a question: from vintages, press prints, contacts, old processes up to inkjet in Piezography, the technique allows you to get as close as possible to the rendering desired by the ‘author.
So this exhibition does not show the “best” images taken by MYOP photographers but those which most reveal their personalities, their backgrounds, their practices. More than the analysis of a technique, it presents a hollow portrait of an agency which happily celebrates its 15 years of “collective differences” totally assumed, like a manifesto: in fine, the MYOP agency is made up of photographers. that commitment and the choice of life unite.
The practice of black and white is proving to be a connection that permits talking about it, even for the most colourists of us. ”
MYOP : Back to black
Until January 9, 2022
Stimultania Strasbourg
33 rue Kageneck
67000 Strasbourg
