Maison de la Photographie Robert Doisneau 1, rue de la Division du Général Leclerc Gentilly, France

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1 Maison de la Photographie Robert Doisneau 1, rue de la Division du Général Leclerc Gentilly, France PRESS KIT CONTACTS The Maison de la Photographie Robert Doisneau is an establishment of the Communauté d Agglomération de Val de Bièvre Olivier Bourgoin agence révélateur +33 (0) olivierbourgoin@agencerevelateur.fr 1 Robert Pareja Maison Doisneau +33 (0) r.pareja@agglo-valdebievre.fr

2 MARCEL BOVIS 6 X 6 curators MICHAËL HOULETTE MATTHIEU RIVALLIN EXHIBITION CO-PRODUCED BY THE MAISON DE LA PHOTOGRAPHIE ROBERT DOISNEAU, GENTILLY - CAVB AND THE MÉDIATHÈQUE DE L ARCHITECTURE ET DU PATRIMOINE, PARIS IN COOPERATION WITH THE CITY OF BRAM. MARCEL BOVIS, 6 X 6 is presented at the Maison Doisneau from February 6 th until April 26t h 2015 and at the Essar[t]s de Bram from January 30 th to May 1 rst

3 MARCEL BOVIS 6 x 6 By MICHAËL HOULETTE and MATTHIEU RIVALLIN curators This exhibtion presents a set of pictures realized from Marcel Bovis original negatives, conserved by the French Médiathèque de l Architecture et du Patrimoine. An archive donated by the photographer to the French State on the 31st of January A thorough look at the contact print collections put together by Bovis himself, reveals the predominance of one format, the so-called "6x6". It represents more than half of his black and white negatives, roughly 10,000 images taken throughout his thirtyyear career. A deeper analysis reveals that Bovis makes a systematic use of the format s properties, working inside a square geometry in search of the "correct and final composition" at the moment of the shutter release. Showing his images in their original framing enables to understand Bovis relation to the subject, to discover his affiliation to the camera. Attempting to grasp both Bovis intentions and emotions the photographer, the man, the walker tracing him back to the second he is taking the photograph. Although Bovis designed multiple exhibition and publication projects, some photographs have, much to his regret, never been published at all, while others are reproduced for the first time in this integrity. The latter are displayed in the same spirit in which Bovis organised them in his carefully prepared collections leading to the donation and the posterity of his work. From February 6th until April 26th, 2015 Marcel Bovis Trained at the National School of Decorative Arts in his hometown Nice, Marcel Bovis ( ) moves to Paris in 1922 where he becomes a decorator in the art galleries of the Galeries Lafayette. However, as a passionate autodidact, thirsty for knowledge, Bovis does not restrict himself to one single art.being a talented designer, accordion player, painter and engraver, he also becomes a photographer at the end of the 1920s. Bovis publishes his first images in Scandale in 1933 and illustrates a year later Les Suicidés, a serialised novel by Georges Simenon. Meeting in August 1936 André Lejard, editor of Arts et Métiers Graphiques marks the beginning of a long collaboration with this magazine. After the war, he finally benefits from important photographic missions by the Commissariat Général au Tourisme or the Administration des Monuments Historiques. Bovis further founds the Groupe des XV together with Daniel Masclet, René-Jacques, Willy Ronis and others. The association defends the rights and values as well as the statute of photographers and strives to have photography recognised as an art. He organises for instance the first retrospective of the American photographer Berenice Abbott in 1947 and writes La Photographie de paysage et d architecture the same year. He publishes numerous articles in magazines like Photographie nouvelle or Photo-Revue. As historian, he writes the technical chapters of publications like 150 ans de photographie française in 1979, Histoire de la photographie in 1986 or Les appareils photographiques français in

4 Rolleiflex Old Standard, 1934, camera lens Tessar Zeiss f/3.5. Musée Français de la Photographie collection The Rolleiflex Attitude Bovis buys his first Rolleiflex 6x6 on the 18 th of August The Rolleiflex becomes rapidly the "ideal tool". "Armed like this, I took many photos. Free, I could wander as I pleased". This small and handy camera does not use glass plate negatives but a big film on celluloid that enabled to take the famous views of roughly six by six centimetres a format that the Rolleiflex will contribute to generalise. This film reduces the photographic material to its strict minimum: the camera and a few rolls. Composition The Rolleiflex like other 6x6 cameras, rather give the impression to compose an image than to capture a reality. More than extending the view, this device placed in front of the abdomen creates above all an idea of detachment. Marcel Bovis appreciates this way to see. He soon finds his own vocabulary inside the viewfinder's square symmetry, considering this format "quite rational" as among others the choice of a vertical or horizontal image is eliminated. Every scene is thus interpreted and reorganized within a uniform grid that isolates details and underlines graphic structures. "The subject should be seen from an abstract angle" recommends Bovis in his manuals. Even if Bovis work follows formal rules, he does not search by all means for the only picture in which all cumbersome elements are absent. On the contrary, having a particular affection for the images rich of signs and complexity, he speaks with pleasure about the sensations behind his photographs, taken to "memorise all I have seen and that deeply touched me for undefinable reasons". The combination of lines, forms and values translates more an intimate echo and a contemplative relation to the world, than the identity of his subjects. It is hence to evoke childhood memories, that Marcel Bovis photographs the booths on funfairs in the 1930s. Moreover, to "materialise an atmosphere" he realises this singular reportage on the Parisian Grand Boulevards in

5 Bovis 6x6 is a unique photography book with images by the french photographer Marcel Bovis ( ), accompanied by a comprehensive introduction to his life and work by Michaël Houlette and Matthieu Rivallin. As an homage to Bovis medium format photography, this "book of usage" suggests the reader to become his own curator, unfolding several independent posters. Bovis 6x6 is a collection object in a limited edition, popular and accessible; this graphic and singular exhibition catalogue invites to discover one of the greatest humanists of the 20th century. This reference work in three languages french, german, english presents 65 pictures, some of them hitherto unpublished. This catalogue is originally published at the occasion of the exhibition presented in the Maison de la Photographie Robert Doisneau in Gentilly from the 6th of February until the 26th of April 2015 and in the Essar[t]s de Bram from 30th of January until the 1st of May 2016 a co-production with the Médiathèque de l Architecture et du Patrimoine. Its paper and digital version, supported by the Agence Photographique de la Réunion des Musées Nationaux, accompany afterwards the european tour of the exhibition. Catalogue Bovis 6 x 6 Tumuult Editions, x16,7 cm 65 pictures 84 pages Price : 14 Ebook version : 1,99 Foreword Antonin Pons Braley texts by Michaël Houlette and Matthieu Rivallin in french, german and english ISBN Hardcover ISBN e-book French-german creave laboratory founded in Berlin in 2014 by Antonin Pons Braley, Tumuult works at the spread and free circulaon of ideas, knowledge and tools at the intersecon of arts, science, architecture and anthropology. tumuult.com 5

6 Catalogue Bovis 6 x 6 Tumuult Editions, 2015 e-book 6

7 Graffiti and white shoes La Rochelle, 1938 Jacques and Jeannette from behind, Paris, Fair at boulevard Rochechouart, 1945

8 Images only free of uses for the promotion of the Marcel Bovis 6x6 exhibition prresented at the Maison Doisneau from February 6 th to April 26t h London, Liverpool Station, 1947 Tavel, 1950 London, The queue for the bus, Paris, Shooting gallery, 1948

9 Maison de la Photographie Robert Doisneau FROM WEDNESDAY UNTIL FRIDAY FROM 1:30 PM UNTIL 6:30 PM 1, rue de la Division du Général Leclerc ON SATURDAY AND SUNDAY FROM 1:30 PM UNTIL7 PM Gentilly, France CLOSED ON PUBLIC HOLIDAYS Tél : +33 (0) RER B, GENTILLY STATION BUS N 57, V5, DIVISION LECLERC BUS N 125, MAIRIE DE GENTILLY TRAMWAY T3, STADE CHARLETY BD PÉRIPHÉRIQUE, EXIT PORTE DE GENTILLY FREE ENTRANCE 9

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