by Sophie Bernard
Photo Adrien Chevrot
Before arriving at the Jeu de Paume in March 2019, you worked at the Musée d'Orsay and then the Centre Pompidou and MoMA in New York, where you headed the Photography Department. How has all this shaped your concept of the medium?
My experience covers the entire history of photography. That's why MoMA chose me in 2013, because their collection ranges from the 19th century to the very contemporary. In the future, at the Jeu de Paume, I may well make a foray into the very beginnings of the medium. The institutions where I have worked are all multidisciplinary, and photography is shown in dialogue with painting, sculpture, architecture. This probably explains why I don't feel the medium is isolated, and why I see it as part of art in the widest sense. While the Jeu de Paume focuses on the image in all its forms, and also covers cinema, video and new technologies, I am keen to approach the issue using other means—in the context of group exhibitions, for example. We still have this idea of a very broad conception that factors in all the methods used to "mechanically" produce images.
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My experience covers the entire history of photography. That's why MoMA chose me in 2013, because their collection ranges from the 19th century to the very contemporary. In the future, at the Jeu de Paume, I may well make a foray into the very beginnings of the medium. The institutions where I have worked are all multidisciplinary, and photography is shown in dialogue with painting, sculpture, architecture. This probably explains why I don't feel the medium is isolated, and why I see it as part of art in the widest sense. While the Jeu de Paume focuses on the image in all its forms, and also covers cinema, video and new technologies, I am keen to approach the issue using other means—in the context of group exhibitions, for example. We still have this idea of a very broad conception that factors in all the methods used to "mechanically" produce images.
Click here to read more.
