“If we want to see well, it’s useless to melt into what we’re looking at. Because if you become the other, how can you be surprised by the other?” Marc Riboud
One photo made a lasting impression and became the symbol of all peace demonstrations. The photo is“The Girl with the Flower“, taken by Marc Riboud in 1967 in Washington during a demonstration against the Vietnam War. The image of Jane Rose Kasmir, a young woman with an imploring look, brandishing a flower in the face of American soldiers’ bayonets has since become an emblematic image, symbolizing a pacifist generation advocating tolerance and militating for peace.
It takes on its full meaning in Marc Riboud’s exhibition“Liberté, Egalité, Féminité“, on view at Galerie Polka until May 21, 2011. Through a world tour of women in fifteen portraits, iconic or previously unpublished photographs, this exhibition is an opportunity to discover the philosophy of this aesthete-poet with a sixty-year career, considered one of the greatest photographers of the 20th century and the Gallery’s most loyal patron.
Washington, 1967. Manifestation contre la guerre du Vietnam ©MARC RIBOUD
Since 1955, French photographer Marc Riboud has traveled the world to capture moments in life. Marc Riboud’s women come from the four corners of the globe: they are African, Japanese or Parisian, but they all have one thing in common, a certain idea of freedom despite their status as women, often in countries or at times when women are still on the sidelines of society.
The photographer often travels to war-torn countries and brings back touching shots, witnessing moments of this world and denouncing a situation of malaise or highlighting a moment of joy, as with these Japanese women hiding their mouths behind the finesse and grace of their fingers to hide the pseudo-indecency of their laughter in 1958. He always manages to capture the elusive, highlighting women in all their different guises. The artist offers us a message of hope and freedom, but also of universality. You could call him a feminist, since his vision of women tends towards the definition of femininity.
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Camp de réfugiés à Calcutta, 1971 ©MARC RIBOUD
What greater testimony could there be to Bangladesh’s war of independence than this poignant photo of a young woman breast-feeding the child she gave birth to in a Calcutta refugee camp in 1971. The war had driven thousands of people to flee the country. The woman opens her arms to protect her bundled-up child. Once again, the photographer’s choice is judicious in offering us this intimate moment full of life and hope.
Marc Riboud supports a young French artist, Marc Montméat, winner of the SFR Jeunes Talents Photo 2009 prize and successfully exhibited at Paris Photo 2009. He will be presenting his“Solitudes” photo series, as well as new photos of New York with very rectilinear images. His work, exclusively in black and white, is particularly graphic and offers a vision of the lonely individual in urban spaces.
This exhibition is accompanied by the work of two women artists whom Galerie Polka is presenting for the first time in France: Donata Wenders and Martha Camarillo.
“Grace and sensuality” by Donata Wenders, a close associate of photographer Peter Lindbergh and wife of director Wim Wenders, is a selection of portraits of women behind the scenes on film sets. Immersed in the intimate, the viewer is drawn into a touchingly gentle dream through these subtle black-and-white photographs, dedicated to choreographer Pina Bausch, and offering us a wonderful look at Milla Jovovich.
“Fletcher Street” by American photographer Martha Camarillo, winner of the 2001 Hyères International Fashion and Photography Festival prize, is the story of a singular Philadelphia neighborhood, where in a famous abandoned stud farm, the neighborhood’s working-class youth take care of incredible horses. An astonishing fable of nature’s reclamation of the city, and a terribly human tribute to young people who have often dropped out of school.
This exhibition is truly an opportunity to salute the work of talented photographer Marc Riboud, and to discover the work of a photographer he supports. Marc Riboud tells us in moving simplicity that, in his own words, “beauty is everywhere”. It’s impossible not to believe him, as femininity seems to be so close to his heart, with all its tenderness and gentleness.
Freedom. Equality. Femininity
Until May 21, 2011
Polka Galerie
Cour de Venise 12, rue Saint-Gilles 75003, Paris
www.polkagalerie.com +33 (0)1 71 20 54 97
Photo credit: ©Marc Riboud with the courtesy of Polka Galerie
Marie-Odile Radom
Cette publication est également disponible en : Français (French)
