December 10, 2003 - March 28, 2004
The first exhibition at the Cartier-Bresson Foundation (see here) showed a certain number of examples of what Cartier-Bresson himself acknowledges as being within the frame work of his own definition of reportage.
His choices, from Riis to very contemporary photographers, showed how many different ways there are to take up a subject within the same discipline.
The eight series of photographs presented here show even more accurately the many different styles of their authors, whether it be the subject itself or the photographer’s intention. Among the best of Darius Kinsey’s images on the Far West wood cutters and Chevreul’s interview (on his 101st birthday) by Felix Nadar, there cannot be another common point than the necessity of narration self imposed by the photographer, the « Reporter ».
The same thing can apply to the pictures Henri Cartier-Bresson shot during the coronation of King George VI, and of those of the construction of the Paris Metro.
The quality of the pictures gives a special meaning to the subjects, whatever the period or the way of reporting. We can all agree that a subject is never as well treated as when form reaches intention.
Hence our will to mix periods, or rather survey them, from the turn of the past century to the end of the 20th .