In 1980 the Sunday Times asked him to go to Glasgow. For a photographer of the south and the desert, Glasgow seemed to be a world away from his work. Yet he discovered the northern light, remembering it later when he photographed the north of France. In Glasgow he asked himself questions much like an anthropologist does: how to avoid exoticism? How much distance should he take?
In large cities, Raymond Depardon felt like an inner exile; as a young man, he found it hard to adapt to Paris. His photographs of Glasgow were never published, but they foreshadowed his work on big cities that he exhibited at the Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Art in 2004.
It was in the 2000s that colour reappeared in his work, becoming more dominant. It was no longer related to reportage, the press and news events but to a quest for a personal truth, the search for happiness, a place to live, a beginning. Depardon rediscovered the light and colour of Ethiopia, South America and the palm groves of Chad.
For this project, he has specially returned to five counties (Ethiopia, Chad, Bolivia, Hawaii and the United States) in order to undertake a new set of photographs for the exhibition. The exhibition at the MuCEM is the opportunity for new images of Marseilles, and the revelation of a new Mediterranean element to his work. Un moment si doux, reveals a quieter, more inward, intellectual approach. Raymond Depardon is now, to quote Clement Rosset, seeking “the sweetness of reality”.
until March 2, 2015
Raymond Depardon
Un moment si doux
MuCEM
Fort Saint-Jean: 201, quai du Port
Marseille