Exhibition produced by MYOP Agency.
Support by the DRAC Grand Est, the Grand Est Region and the City of Strasbourg.
Back to black is a collective exhibition bringing together the twenty members of the MYOP agency around the practice of black and white and largely giving a voice to photographers. The exhibition was conceived and shown for the first time on the occasion of MYOP in Arles 2021, Galerie Henri Comte.
We saw the exhibition in Arles, this summer 2021, the summer of reunion. An exhibition in subdued colors, antique red and salicornia, ingenious with its frames in boxes of photographs, talkative and generous. One hundred black and white photographs, contact sheets, original prints, digital, photocopies, taken by ubiquitous heroes - the nineteen members of the agency, which today has twenty - in East Timor, Guatemala, Chile, Chechnya and also in Paris, Afghanistan, Georgia, Romania, Quebec, Greenland, Italy… History seemed to be playing out there, in front of our eyes, in these black and white images.
The theme, proposed by the curator, Olivier Monge, made it possible to bring together photographers with various practices. An invitation, of course, to talk about technique but also, and above all, absolute freedom. Because black and white, they kept it for themselves. He was intimate, instinctive, free. These words are those of the photographers, encouraged to tell their story in an exhibition that overflows with sincerity. “Black and white has a special relationship with the story, with the myth, with thehistoricity, more than History ”explains Jean Larive in the soundtracks which increase exposure in Strasbourg. “Things spring up in color and fall back into black and white. "
Celine Duval
With Ed Alcock, Guillaume Binet, Julien Daniel, Agnès Dherbeys, Marie Dorigny, Julie Hascoët, Pierre Hybre, Olivier Jobard, Alain Keler, France Keyser, Oan Kim, Olivier Laban-Mattei, Stéphane Lagoutte, Jean Larive, Ulrich Lebeuf, Pascal Maitre , Olivier Monge, Julien Pebrel, Jeremy Saint-Peyre and Chloé Sharrock
Curator : Olivier Mongé
Scenography: Roxane Daumas and Olivier Monge
MYOP coordination : Guillaume Binet, Antoine Kimmerlin, Stéphane Lagoutte
Piezography prints : Yonnel Leblanc / Initial Lab
Since its generalization in the press from the end of the 1980s, color photography has become a standard, reinforced by the appearance of digital. However, we have chosen to focus on “black” with a selection of heterogeneous images, brought together by the close link that MYOP photographers maintain with this practice that has become marginal but remains essential.
Black and white, through the independence and freedom of treatment that it provides, through the wealth of printing techniques, represents an ideal field of experimentation, often very artisanal, often solitary. The laboratory is a place of introspection.
Black and white is also the crucible of our visual references. The most cited are Josef Koudelka, Walker Evans, Robert Franck, William Klein… All in black and white. In an agency that claims the diversity of writing, it is a common culture, a point of reference, roots and a source of contemporary inspiration.
Read more
From the texts that accompany this exhibition emerges a visceral attachment to a practice which in turn makes it possible to offer an intimate refuge during life upheavals, a reappropriation of the medium when weariness sets in, a strong and ambitious choice. on subjects that photographers consider important to them, a personal way of seeing differently.
The printing technique is also a question: from vintages, press prints, contacts, old processes up to inkjet in Piezography, the technique allows you to get as close as possible to the rendering desired by the 'author.
So this exhibition does not show the “best” images taken by MYOP photographers but those which most reveal their personalities, their backgrounds, their practices. More than the analysis of a technique, it presents a hollow portrait of an agency which happily celebrates its 15 years in its “collective differences” totally assumed, like a manifesto: in fine, the MYOP agency is made up of photographers. that commitment and the choice of life unite.
The practice of black and white turns out to be a link that allows it to be told, even for the most colourists among us.
View of the exhibition © Olivier Monge
LISTEN TO THE PHOTOGRAPHERS
In the form of audio testimonials, the members of the MYOP agency tell each other and share here their relationship to the practice of black and white photography.
"My vision of black and white? Great freedom of medium and interpretation, and often a perfect ground for experimentation. The laboratory is, moreover, a place of personal encounter with the medium, of intimacy, of introspection. Some authors use it at specific times in their lives: a break-up, a weariness, the pressing need to produce a very personal subject… ”
Olivier Monge
“Black and white, I kept it for myself. I allowed myself a few steps aside to carry out more personal projects. I was taking leave of the agency. I had neither constraint nor commercial obligation. "
Olivier Jobard
“You had to work in color for the newspapers and magazines that were the agency's main clients, but I always had a Leica loaded with black and white film on my stomach. […] Black and white thus survived many existential and professional crises. "
Alain keler
“At the time, we were getting our Forte PW14 chemicals and Hungarian paper from a totally anachronistic shop in Chinatown, where the purple haired lady systematically applied a 5% discount. "
Agnes Dherbeys
FOR FURTHER
MYOP agency brings together twenty authors who confront their visions of contemporary photography and their questions about the world of today through the stories they tell. Since its creation in 2005, the notion of resistance has regularly been at the center of discussions; it asserts itself through the defense of a documentary photograph with claimed subjectivity. The name of the agency is a tribute to Paul Éluard's poem "My eyes, patient objects / were forever open / on the expanse of the seas / where I was drowning".
The MYOP agency is made up of photographers Ed Alcock, Guillaume Binet, Julien Daniel, Agnès Dherbeys, Marie Dorigny, Julie Hascoët, Pierre Hybre, Olivier Jobard, Alain Keler, France Keyser, Oan Kim, Olivier Laban-Mattei, Stéphane Lagoutte, Jean Larive, Ulrich Lebeuf, Pascal Maitre, Olivier Monge, Julien Pebrel, Jeremy Saint-Peyre and Chloé Sharrock.
