L'équilibre des forces - Paul Strand
Je n'avais encore jamais traîné mes pieds à la Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson
(79, rue des Archives, Paris), mais je ne regrette pas ce petit effort car jusqu'à fin avril,
deux expositions remarquables y sont présentées.
Intéressons nous à celle de Paul Strand (1890-1976) L'équilibre des forces
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Manhatta film de Paul Strand et Charles Sheeler
Le fim Manhatta disponible sur Youtube
Your photography is a record of your living - for anyone who really sees. You may see and be
affected by other people's ways, you may even use them to find your own, but you will have
eventually to free yourself of them. That is what Nietzche meant when he said, 'I have just read Schopenhauer, now I have to get rid of him.' He knew how insidious other people's ways could
be, particularly those which have the forcefulness of profound experience, if you let them get
between you and your own personal vision.
(Paul Strand)
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It is one thing to photograph people. It is another to make others care about them by
revealing the core of their humanness.
(Paul Strand)
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Cartier-Bresson has said that photography seizes a 'decisive moment', that's true except that
it shouldn't be taken too narrowly...does my picture of a cobweb in the rain represent a decisive
moment? The exposure time was probably three or four minutes. That's a pretty long moment.
I would say the decisive moment in that case was the moment in which I saw this thing and
decided I wanted to photograph it.
(Paul Strand)
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Young Boy, Gondeville, Charente - 1951
Un film et un livre ont été réalisés dans les années 90 à la recherche de ce jeune homme
en colère. Je n'ai pas retrouvé le film hélas, mais j'ai pu prendre une photographie de cet
homme (Claude Grijalvas) extraite de la vidéo présentée.
La photographie a été réalisée devant la même porte de la maison du village de Gondeville
It is easy to make a picture of someone and call it a portrait. The difficulty lies in making a
picture that makes the viewer care about a stranger.
(Paul Strand)
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The artist's world is limitless. It can be found anywhere, far from where he lives or a few feet
away. It is always on his doorstep.
(Paul Strand)
If you let other people's vision get between the world and your own, you will achieve that
extremely common and worthless thing, a pictorial photograph.
(Paul Strand)
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No matter what lens you use, no matter what speed the film, no matter how you develop it,
no matter how you print it, you cannot say more than you can see.
(Paul Strand)
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I like to photograph people who have strength and dignity in their faces. Whatever life has
done to them, it hasn’t destroyed them.
(Paul Strand)
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I've always wanted to be aware of what's going on around me, and I've wanted to use
photography as an instrument of research into and reporting on the life of my own time.
(Paul Strand)
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Objectivity is of the very essence of photography, its contribution and at the same time its limitation
(Paul Strand)
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Every artist I suppose has a sense of what they think has been the importance of their work.
But to ask them to define it is not really a fair question. My real answer would be, the answer
is on the wall.
(Paul Strand)
Après cette longue visite (ça fait mal aux pieds de piétiner dans une exposition, n'est ce pas ?),
dirigeons-nous vers la sortie.
All light is available light.
(Paul Strand)
Avant de reprendre le métro, posons nous quelques instants pour regarder l'interview
de Clément Chéroux (directeur de la fondation) sur l'exposition Paul Strand
Merci de votre visite, bonne semaine, n'oubliez pas le guide. :-)
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