Raymond Depardon: Correspondance New-Yorkaise (NYC, May 2017)
May 11th 2017 (FIAF, New York City), In conversation with François Hébel
In 1981, Raymond Depardon’s La correspondance New-Yorkaise was published every day for one month in the Libération newspaper in France. 36 years later, Raymond Depardon is taking a new look at New York and creating one photograph per day from May 2-9.
La correspondance New-Yorkaise July 1981: Marked up until that point by the humanism attributed to Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Doisneau, Willy Ronis and several others, and by the success of photographic agencies in the wake of Gamma (created in 1966 by the very same Raymond Depardon), French photography seemed to be ignoring a new photographic trend that was developing in the United States, a new distance, less tied to specific events and celebrities.
As an apprentice in a small-town studio at the age of 14, and employee of a Parisian photo agency at 18 where he covered starlets like wars, Raymond Depardon draws closer to a signature type of photography with his New York correspondence.
Like the “new journalism” of the times, he was feeding on daily life while writing in the first person, without denying his subjectivity. That summer, France experienced the euphoria of the left’s ascent into power. Having recently left Gamma to join the mythical Magnum agency, Raymond Depardon decided to prolong his stay in New York and send a photo a day to the Libération newspaper, a beacon of this new power.
This collaboration, composed of humorous, observational, photographic notes, turned into an exceptional event. For one whole month, the newspaper dedicated a full page to these photographs that had nothing to do with the news, but were still published punctually, day after day.
This desire to change physical distance came to him during his long stay in New York in 1981. Notably, he dedicated six years (2004-2010) to photographing France backcountry, village squares, semi-urban spaces, turning his perspective on what is qualified as “down time,” which we no longer notice, and making it remarkable again.
Opening night, May 11th 2017 (FIAF, New York City), In conversation with François Hébel.
Raymond Depardon accepted to bring this new approach to New York for an exhibition specially commissioned for FIAF, which was created in real time, 36 years after the first Correspondance New-Yorkaise and 10 years after his last stay in the big apple. Working with an 8×10 inch color large format camera, he produced a picture a day.
Robert Yves Pledge, in front of his photograph taken 36 years earlier!
He is one of the most knowledgeable, pleasant and enlightening people working in photojournalism.
In 1976, Robert Yves Pledge, with a small group of highly talented photographers including Raymond Depardon, founded Gamma in January 1967 and co-founded Contact Press Images in NYC. It is one of the agencies that changed the landscape of photojournalism in Europe and America during the 1970s–1980s. Very involved with humanitarian and human-rights issues. Doing long-term stories on regime change, civil wars and genocide when they first appear on the horizon. The vivid images of apartheid in South Africa, the civil war in El Salvador, the fall of the Shah of Iran, and 9/11 are visual markers of the 20th–21st centuries.
Raymond Depardon is a French photographer and filmmaker. He is represented by Magnum Photos. Depardon’s 11 photographs shot in 2017, alongside his original series from the 1980s, are on show at the FIAF gallery in NY. The exhibition is curated by Francois Hebel.
Photos: Yves Lefebvre
Text/info/extracts from F. Hebels's press release on 05/10/17 and Olivier Laurent (Time, 05/12/18).
