“I enter with her, Hotel des Grands Hommes. Room 52 is deafeningly silent. On the walls, fifteen lions, twice as many sheep and oxen, all in good health, seek each other out in a blood-red landscape. She explores, opens, turns on the light, jumps on the bed…” Guillaume Amat
Hotel photography is a powerful and distinctive genre. Hotel rooms are often the setting for tragedies. They become places of life. Sophie Calle, for example, after securing a position as a chambermaid in a Venetian hotel for a three-week replacement, photographed the traces of guests’ passage (beds not yet unmade, towels left in the bathroom, garbage cans not yet emptied, etc.) and their effects. Other photographs focus on decoration, space and the benefits offered to guests, while others serve as backdrops for fashion shots. Hotel rooms become scenes. It’s a short step from life scenes to theatrical stages.
Painted Veil , Hôtel des Grands Hommes © Guillaume Amat
On September 02 2010, in the prestigious setting of the Théâtre de l’Odéon, the Prix Photo d’Hôtel/Photo d’Auteur organized by the “Hôtels Paris Rive Gauche” hotel group was awarded. The fourth edition of this prize, initiated by Pascal and Corinne Moncelli, patrons and owners of Hôtel Paris Rive Gauche, was awarded to photographer Guillaume Amat, who received 3,000 euros for his photograph Painted Veil in a room at the Hôtel des Grands Hommes. His work will also be exhibited at the Galerie Esther Woerdehoff in Paris in early 2011. A second prize, the Prix Virginie Clément awarded by the staff of Paris Rive Gauche Hotels, went to Ambroise Tézenas for his photograph at the Hôtel des Jardins de l’Odéon.
©Ambroize Tezenas
For my part, I prefer two photographs that respond to each other and renew two very popular styles of photography.
Eiffel Park ©Lucie Pastureau
First of all, Lucie Pastereau ‘s Eiffel Park photograph reminds me of David Hamilton’s iconic style. Where the master favored exteriors, the young photographer has found the same steamy ambience, but in the soft light of a hotel room, rendering the intimacy of an almost stolen moment. Instead of evanescent flower girls, the photographer gently presents a male nude.
Hôtel du Panthéon © Cédric Rouillat
But the photograph that impressed me the most was the one by Cédric Rouillat at the Hôtel du Panthéon. The photo is unsettling, with a blonde woman who isn’t really a woman in a red dress and pearl necklace, whose frozen gaze is reminiscent of window mannequins. The red of the antique baby carriage and the old-fashioned decor of the room provide a perfect contrast, and make fun of the fashion scenes photographed in designer hotels. Where the emphasis should be on femininity and modernity, with highly stereotyped codes, the photographer plays on clichés by systematically going against the grain of the classic fashion figure.
Since 2005, the “Hôtels Paris Rive Gauche” label has initiated the “Photo d’Hôtel, Photo d’Auteur” artistic project. to support contemporary photography. The concept of the project is simple: every month, a young photographer is invited to spend a night in one of the Paris Rive Gauche hotels, and to produce a unique photograph and text inspired by the stay. The selected photograph, the text and a presentation of the artist are then exhibited on the Paris Rive Gauche Hotels online gallery. The Prix Photo d’Hôtel, Photo d’Auteur and the exhibition were created in 2007 with the help of the Fetart association to organize this photographic event at the start of the Parisian summer season.
Théâtre de l'Odéon #13 © Patrick Tourneboeuf
“Since 2005, we have been supporting and encouraging photography. The Photo d’Hôtel, Photo d’Auteur project has provided creative space for over 50 young photographers. […] Photography is also on show in our hotels. Our Design Sorbonne establishment hosts the permanent exhibition La Photographie dans tous ses états, and La Belle Juliette – in homage to Madame Récamier – will also feature the work of young photographers when it opens in October on rue du Cherche-midi. explains Alain Bisotti, Marketing Director of Hôtels Paris Rive Gauche and artistic director of the event.
Théâtre de l'Odéon ©Patrick Tourneboeuf
The exhibition will run until Sunday, September 19, 2010, from 11am to 6:30pm (closing Sunday, September 12), and will showcase the work of the year’s 12 photographers, as well as the work of Patrick Tourneboeuf, a member of the jury who worked on the Carte Blanche Dans le décor, Monumental, a series of photographs of all the hotels, the Théâtre de l’Odéon and the Ateliers Berthier. Patrick Tourneboeuf explored the central theme of the theater set and the hotel room in his own way. He explored and photographed backstage, corridors, dressing rooms and the underside of the Odéon stage, while at the same time shooting in the group’s five hotels. On the front of the theater, like a monumental welcome, is a photo of the empty theater hall in inverted perspective: the theater hall is seen from the stage, not from the theater, offering us the artist’s view of those who contemplate him. The small terrace set up for the performance of Hamlet recalls the small terrace in front of the theater.
Hôtel Jardin de l'Odéon #04 © Patrick Tourneboeuf
Théâtre de l'Odéon ©Patrick Tourneboeuf
The shots respond almost naturally to each other, forming diptychs that play on the unthinkable similarities between stage and hotel room. Subtle links emerge in the framing and in certain details, motifs and plays of light, inexorably bringing together the almost icy atmosphere of the theater and the often impersonal atmosphere of the hotel. The two then merge into a single idea to become scenes of life: ” Placing the Théâtre de l’Odéon and the Ateliers Berthier in parallel with hotels brings into confrontation two seemingly contradictory aspects: the monumental and the intimate. But the hotel room is just as much a set as the theater. So I created diptychs in which shapes, graphics and lighting are repeated and respond to each other. The two spaces interact and ultimately resemble each other. “
Théâtre de l’Odéon #22 © Patrick Tourneboeuf
Hôtel des Grands Hommes #12 © Patrick Tourneboeuf
Patrick Tourneboeuf works in camera, a long exposure technique suited to expressing the intimate: “Lhe photograph is an element of persistent memory. It stops time forever. “ Working in the camera required extreme concentration and application, but it’s a wonderful way of“making an extraordinary moment out of an ordinary one.” The long exposure times create ghostly presences and sometimes traces of life.
A visit to the exhibition is an excellent opportunity to discover the wonderful Théâtre de l’Odéon, one of Paris’s most beautiful theaters, and its terrace overlooking the capital, from other, unknown angles, as well as to travel to the hotels of Paris’s Left Bank.
The exhibition will be on view as part of the 2010 European Heritage Days weekend, Saturday September 18 and Sunday September 19, 2010, from 11am to 6:30pm.
Photos d’Hôtel, Photo d’auteur exhibition
Théâtre de l’Odéon
Place de l’Odéon
75006 Paris
www.hotels-paris-rive-gauche.com
Marie-Odile Radom
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