“He left behind an inestimable visual heritage of maritime Brittany,” said Jacques de Thézac. [1862-1936] Frédéric Tanter, established as its “historian and biographer” in the presentation of the new temporary exhibition of the Breton Departmental Museum. Visible from this Monday, July 1, 2024 until December 31, 2025, “Objectif mer” constructs an astonishing dialogue between 80 prints from the Thézac collection (negatives on glass plate) and 54 prints ordered from the Breton center photographer Valentin Figuier. Established in the Bigouden country since 2016, he also talks about his point of view as a user: he practices surfing.
The sea and the coast as an aesthetic object, of course. But a century apart, the photographic purpose of these two perspectives on this territory lies above all in the anthropological approach. Figures, uses. Each in their own time, Thézac and Figuier highlight a small part of the coastal people in their relationship to the ocean.
134 images for a dialogue
We will pass over the small contortion exercise allowing the exhibition to conveniently attach itself to the Olympic Games caravan by selling the theme of “sports photographs”. To open up to as many people as possible, undoubtedly another performance objective.
It is better to dwell on the power of the images rather well served by a staging, referring to the model of the ecomuseum. Agnès Badiche, interior designer and scenographer does not hesitate, over the course of a journey built with the Bigouden photographer Stéphane Lavoué, to play with large formats or to confront the gaze of the two photographers by bringing their images together.
Forces of the elements
On the one hand, a brute force carries Thézac’s images. Which fulfill an almost documentary function, testifying to the harshness of the times. Not without sometimes letting in this ray of poetic light that the ocean knows how to perfectly impose.
On the other, the images of Valentin Figuier. Twenty tight portraits, for example, in which resides a more muted force, carried by gazes flying beyond the horizon line or immediately planted in yours. The Bigouden photographer also likes graphic construction which he knows how to work with images, for example, captured underwater.
On one side or the other, the sea becomes a playground without completely losing its enigmatic or even distressing character, returning humans and their bodies to their insignificance.
Practical
“Objectif mer”, at the Breton Departmental Museum, rue du Roi Gradlon in Quimper, every day from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. in July and August, (ticket office closes at 6:30 p.m.); €7 or €4; free under 18s, job seekers, RSA beneficiaries, disabled people. Such. 02 98 95 21 60; email. [email protected]
