Critics discuss two photography exhibitions: first the first monograph in Europe dedicated to Barbara Crane, an internationally renowned American photographer, at the Center Pompidou Photography Gallery, then Family Ties by Tina Barney at the Jeu de Paume, a precise observation of wealthy America in the 1980s and 1990s.
Barbara Crane in the spotlight in the Center Pompidou photography gallery
The Center Pompidou presents the first major monograph dedicated in Europe to Barbara Crane, an internationally renowned American photographer whose career spans more than sixty years. The exhibition focuses on the first 25 years of his career and brings together more than 200 works, some of which recently entered the collection of the National Museum of Modern Art.
Crane's work is remarkable for the synthesis it brings about between the tradition of straight photography American and a more experimental sensibility, inherited from the European avant-gardes and typical of the teachings of the Chicago school. Here, the artist constantly takes possession of his environment to make each detail, each person, a place of curiosity and questioning.
Critics' opinions
- Joseph Ghosn : “I was immediately captivated from the first images. The end of the rooms arrives a little too quickly for my taste. We feel from the start that Crane's work is a research into what photography is, what will it represent, how will we work on it? When we arrive we see the photographs as collages and then very abstract images of bodies, splendid. They reminded me of Japanese photography from the same period. , with an echo of the Bauhaus movement each time plunging us into the heart of something through a mass of small details. Loop questions the effects of repetition on the body and on the eyes, in the same way as the music of Philip Glass, for example. It also made me think of the work of Miyako Ishiushi exhibited this summer in Arles in particular.”
- Sally Bonn : “Barbara Crane is a very beautiful discovery for me. Julie Jones does essential work by showing us this work in constant research, alert, lively, passionate with repetition effects which run throughout the exhibition and which I found it absolutely splendid. It is a work in permanent movement. Barbara Crane plays with her effects of seriality. She always photographs in an ambivalent relationship between the documentary and the totally abstract movement of some of her photographs. Human Forms, which produces a particularly interesting work.”
The exhibition catalog was published jointly with the Center Pompidou and the EXB workshop. The curator of the exhibition is Julie Jones, curator at the photography office, National Museum of Modern Art and Center Pompidou. The exhibition can be seen from September 11, 2024 to January 6, 2025 at the Center Pompidou photography gallery, with free admission.
“Family Ties”: behind her family photos, Tina Barney reveals the rich Americans of the 80s
Born in 1945, Tina Barney began photographing her relatives and friends in the late 1970s. A keen observer of family rituals, she is particularly interested in relationships between generations in the domestic context. His colorful portraits, often group and large format, seem at first glance to be family snapshots. However, they are for the most part carefully staged by the artist, creating composed paintings that establish a dialogue with classical painting in order to hold an extraordinary social chronicle in images of the wealthy and successful America of the 1980s-1990s.
The exhibition, which retraces 40 years of the artist's career, is the largest European retrospective devoted to him to date. Produced by Jeu de Paume, it reveals a selection of 55 large-scale prints mixing color and black and white images, photos from his beginnings and new productions with known models such as Julianne Moore or anonymous ones close to the artist.
Critics' opinions
future…
The exhibition catalog was published by EXB. The exhibition can be seen from September 28, 2024 to January 19, 2025 at the Jeu de Paume, in Paris.
Sound clips
- Chanson Uptown Girlfrom “An Innocent Man” by Billy Joel, 1983.
- Archive of the voice of Barbara Crane on 02/04/2018, with music by Terry Riley
