On the occasion of the centenary of the birth of Sabine Weiss (1924-2021), Photo Elysée pays tribute to the Franco-Swiss photographer, a major figure of the French so-called “humanist” movement. The artist sent all of his archives to the Lausanne museum in 2017.
Born on July 23, 1924 in Saint-Gingolph (VS) on the shores of Lake Geneva, Sabine Weiss donated 200,000 negatives, 7,000 contact sheets, around 2,000 slides, photographs and numerous other documents. The voluminous ensemble joined Photo Elysée on the Platforme 10 site at the start of the year.
“It is therefore a very spontaneous exhibition. The idea is to awaken and now share his work,” Nathalie Herschdorfer, director of the photography museum, told the media on Friday. Around a hundred works drawn from this collection are on display until January 12, 2025, some iconic, others more unknown, including some treasures unearthed by surprise.
They give a very representative overview of the versatility of Sabine Weiss, a true “jack of all trades”: street, studio, fashion, advertising photographer, portraitist and also photojournalist for numerous international magazines. It is an admirable and very active career, 60 years long and which explores all aspects of the profession of photographer, summarized Ms. Herschdorfer.
From the street to the studio
Died on December 28, 2021 at the age of 97, Sabine Weiss is one of the big names in European photography. She is one of the last representatives of “humanist” photography, a movement born in France after the Second World War and to which artists such as Robert Doisneau or Brassaï are linked. She moved to Paris in 1946 and was naturalized French in 1995.
With the exhibition which pays a beautiful tribute to her, the public will discover the eclectic journey of this outstanding technician who acquired her first device at the age of 12 with her pocket money. She then learned the trade in the Geneva studio Boissonnas.
Upon her arrival in the French capital, she worked for fashion photographer Willy Maywald, then opened her own studio. She also remained linked to the Rapho agency for a long time.
For the exhibition, instant photos, street and everyday scenes immortalizing the simple lives of people, rub shoulders with highly organized photos staged in the studio for portraits, advertising or even fashion (for Vogue in particular). Tenderness, delicacy, elegance, playfulness, creativity and also great rigor jump out at the same time to the visitor.
Dialogue with paper
Photo Elysée invited the French visual artist Nathalie Boutté to dialogue with the work of Sabine Weiss. She even participated in the construction of the tribute exhibition. Her paper works, inspired by images created by the photographer, therefore accompany the works throughout the exhibition.
A very meticulous process: Nathalie Boutté cuts out hundreds or even more than a thousand thin strips of paper on which appear a quote from Sabine Weiss, before assembling them to recompose the original photograph. The shades of gray in the paper strips create gradients, similar to digital pixels.
ats
