L’Ascenseur occupe la 501. Sophie Calle with Jean-Paul Demoule

Harry Gruyaert

Introduction by Brice Matthieussent

 PHOTO  POCHE

12.5 × 19 cm 144 pages 61 color photographs softback photo poche n° 108 november 2022 retail price: 13.90 €

new revised edition

Brice Matthieussent is a French translator, writer and publisher. Since the late 1970s, he has translated a wide range of English language literature, especially contemporary American authors, such as John Fante and Jim Harrison. He is a lecturer in aesthetics at the École supérieure des beaux-arts in Marseille, has written a number of critical texts and has worked for various reviews, among which Art Press, Le Magazine littéraire, La Revue d’esthétique and Les Épisodes. C olor photography only developed late in the history of the medium. For a long time, black and white was de rigueur in the canons of photography. Harry Gruyaert went onto explore all its possibilities, setting out to understand the new problematics posed by color for both the viewer and the photographer. He himself said: “Color is a way of sculpting what I see. Color does not illustrate the subject or the scene I am photographing, it has value in itself. It is even the emotion of the photography.” A member of the Magnum agency, his frequent photo stories in Egypt, India, Morocco and the United States enabled him to perfect his techniques for cityscapes, seascapes and bucolic settings, producing images of startling beauty which took his mastery of composition and framing to a new level.

Harry Gruyaert’s photography tunes in to the sometimes violent, sensual wavelengths of the viewer, unsettling and destabilizing the eyes. The way he captures the brutal irruption of radical otherness is amazing and enhances the awe inherent in all photography.

This new revised edition is augmented with reappraisals of his work since 2006 after a series of monographs and exhibitions, as well as his most recent work.