“Since 2015, our small team has been working to capture the essence of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, that iconic Paris neighborhood with its own unique spirit for photography. The festival invites visitors to explore its streets, visiting famous spots and discovering hidden gems along the way,” says Marcadier, an art historian who has been at the helm of this event for nearly a decade. This year’s route includes thirty-four stops across Paris’s 5th, 6th, and 7th arrondissements, including a unique outdoor installation by Clara Prioux on the Quai de Solférino, themed around bread.
For three weeks, with most exhibitions free to the public, this festival brings the neighborhood together around the art of photography. Museums, cultural centers (including Irish and Czech), and galleries contribute to the lineup, with some venues curating photographic displays specifically for the festival.
On the other hand, PhotoSaintGermain also brings original and unique initiatives, designed or co-produced by the festival itself. “What matters to us is staying true to the spirit of these places,” explains Marcadier. This spirit shines through in the involvement of schools like the Parisian École des Beaux-Arts and Penninghen on opening weekend, echoing the district’s academic roots, as well as in landmark venues such as Berthet-Aittouarès, Gallimard, Le Minotaure & Kaléidoscope, Roger-Viollet, the Musée d’Histoire de la Médecine, Delacroix Museum, and local bookstores, including Les Alpes, delpire & co., and 7L.
With five new locations added this year, the 13th PhotoSaintGermain festival continues its mission to captivate with diversity and originality. One highlight is an exhibition set in the historic salons of the Dean of the Faculty of Pharmacy (Université Paris Cité), an unusual space for art, where Années 1930 et modernité: L’âge d’or des revues médicales [The 1930s and Modernity: The Golden Age of Medical Journals] offers a window onto medical journals flourishing in the 1930s. Curated by Zoé Isle de Beauchaine, who discovered Art et Médecine while researching Germaine Krull, the exhibition explores the vibrant world of these periodicals, including Mieux Vivre, dedicated to leisure pursuits, and Diversion, known for its bold layouts.
Visitors are immersed in an era when the press embraced photography, commissioning pieces that brought stories to life. The display alternates between original magazines showcased in glass tables and wallpaper-sized facsimiles, accompanied by works from photographers André Kertész, Roger Schall, François Kollar, and Laure Albin Guillot, on loan from the Médiathèque de l’architecture et de la photographie.
The journey continues with a stroll across the Luxembourg Gardens to the Hôtel de la Louisiane, yet another unexpected exhibition space and part of what makes PhotoSaintGermain so compelling. Here, in the Salle Simone—named in honor of the author of The Second Sex—twelve works by Antanas Sutkus, hailed as “the Lithuanian Cartier-Bresson” by curator Sonia Voss, are on display. Among them is Sutkus’s famous 1965 photo of Jean-Paul Sartre, slightly stooped as he walks, surprisingly accompanied by Simone de Beauvoir herself. A small but enthralling exhibit.
On the third floor of Hôtel de la Louisiane you’ll find Room Service (November 7–10), an original concept launched three years ago, where each artist takes over a room to create a unique space. Emmanuelle Fructus/Un livre une image is among the artists featured, showcasing her collection of over 30,000 vernacular photos, recently donated to the Société Française de Photographie, making them accessible to researchers and historians.
Just a few hundred meters away, the micro gallery Zander honors Robert Frank with five of his rare works, celebrating the hundredth anniversary of his birth. Among the highlights is a 1944 view of Paris, foreshadowing the unorthodox style he went on to develop in The Americans, published fourteen years later, with its blurred, ghost-like figures. “These are lesser-known works from his Flower Is book, published in Japan in 1987, mixing scenes from Paris, Detroit, and New York,” explains director Béatrice Andrieux.
At 12 rue Jacob, formerly home to Editions du Seuil, the ambiance shifts at Rubis Mécénas hors les murs, a longstanding festival partner. Here, the endowment fund presents works by Tshepiso Mazibuko & Sibusiso Bheka, two emerging South African photographers from the Of Soul and Joy mentorship program based in Johannesburg’s Thokoza township. Curator Valérie Fougeirol combines color and black-and-white, day and night, and years’ worth of series by both artists to create “a single voice with two perspectives of artists born post-apartheid, exploring the everyday life and dreams of South Africa’s young democracy.”
Further along rue Jacob, at number 48, the renowned Alain Brieux bookstore hosts Les Immortels, a collection of post-mortem photographs by artist Hervé Bohnert. Nestled among books and scientific and medical artifacts, this exhibit marks a continuation of last year’s Phénomènes: Les savants et les mystères de l’esprit at the Musée d’Histoire de la Médecine. Curated by Philippe Baudouin, a devotee of curiosities and oddities, Les Immortels showcases for the first time 60 images from Bohnert’s 600-piece collectio. Gathering images of “after-life photography” from the 1850s to the 1950s, the exhibition unfolds in five chapters, delving into a forgotten yet once-popular practice. It’s a surprising encounter with cherubic faces and serene sleepers, culminating with haunting scenes from funeral wakes.
A final highlight of this year’s festival: Laura Ben Hayoun Stepanian, Lotfi Benyelles, and Michel Slomka are featured at the Crous gallery in a co-production by PhotoSaintGermain and the Centre National des Arts Plastiques (CNAP). This second collaboration, curated by Pascal Beausse and Aurélia Marcadier, spotlights recipients of CNAP’s documentary photography grants. Centered on the theme of memory, the exhibit takes viewers on a journey from Armenia to Algiers to Birkenau, spotlighting a wealth of documentary storytelling. True to the spirit of this 13th iteration of PhotoSaintGermain, the exhibition weaves together grand and intimate histories.
The 13th edition of PhotoSaintGermain runs through November 23, 2024. For detailed exhibition dates, visit the festival’s website.
Related Events:
November 9, 2024: The Night of Photojournalism, presented by the Fondation Carmignac, CatchLight, Dysturb, and PhotoSaintGermain, offers a night of discussions, debates, screenings, and music at the Saint-Côme amphitheater (5 Rue de l’École de Médecine, 75006 Paris).
Suggested reading: SIMONE, the festival’s newspaper edited by Matthieu Nicol/Too Many Pictures, available free at all exhibition venues.
Don‘t miss: As part of the new LUX network, which includes around twenty French festivals and fairs, PhotoSaintGermain is participating in the network’s inaugural group exhibition, featuring work by Pascal Amoyel. “Réseau Lux #1,” 30–32 rue Louise-Émilie de la Tour d’Auvergne, 75009 Paris. Through December 8, 2024.
