Initiated in 2015 by François Pinault in tribute to his writer and Art historian friend, the Pierre Daix Prize was awarded on November 25, 2024 to the art historian Éric de Chassey for his work Show. Images of Birkenau, from the Sonderkommando to Gerhard Richter (Gallimard editions, May 2024). The Pinault Collection salutes “ concise and analytical writing » and a writing which « stands out as an impactful work and encourages a demanding reading of the meaning of the images. »
The book focuses on Birkenau, a cycle of four abstract paintings by the German painter Gerhard Richter (born in 1932) produced in 2014. The artist compares them to four photographs taken in the summer of 1944 “ near crematorium V of Auschwitz-Birkenau by members of the Sonderkommando assigned to the preparation of victims and the treatment of their corpses “. They are the only direct testimonies of the process of extermination of the Jews of Europe. Éric de Chassey analyzes these photographs to understand their treatment by a contemporary artist and question our relationship to the moral and political issues of images. His investigation, he said, was triggered when he became aware that Richter had manipulated the images. He therefore sought to know: what these manipulations had been, and what their effects were. » Éric de Chassey addressed these questions for the first time in a column published in our monthly The Art Newspaper French edition from July 2023.
Director general of the National Institute of Art History (INHA) in Paris, but also professor of modern and contemporary art history at the École normale supérieure in Lyon, Éric de Chassey was born in Pittsburgh ( United States) in 1965. Director of the Villa Medici from 2009 to 2015, since 2022 he has chaired the International Network of Research Institutes in the History of Art (RIHA) and the committee editorial of the international project “The Visual Arts in Europe: An open history” (EVA).
He is the author or co-author of numerous works on visual culture in the second half of the 20th century, including American and European art, transatlantic cultural relations, and the work of Matisse; and curator or co-curator of exhibitions across Europe and the United States, most recently “La Répétition.” A choice from the collections of the Center Pompidou”, on view at the Center Pompidou-Metz until January 27, 2025.
The other books in the running for this edition of the Pierre Daix Prize were: Public art and controversies. 19th-21st centuries by Julie Bawin (CNRS Éditions, March 2024); Jews betrayed by their France: 1939-1944 Annette Becker (Gallimard, February 2024); Jay DeFeo: Xerographic Studies by Judith Delfiner (La Part de l’Œil, January 2023); The emotional part by Sophie Orlando (Paraguay Press, April 2024); Art Journeys by Jacques Rancière (Seuil, September 2023); Beauties of the ephemeral. Apology for soap bubbles by Pierre Zaoui (Seuil, March 2024).
Eric de Chassey, Show. Images of Birkenau, from the Sonderkommando to Gerhard RichterParis, Gallimard, 2024, 104 pages, 20 euros.
