Robert Doisneau à la Michael Hoppen Gallery
The Michael Hoppen Gallery welcomes a wonderful exhibition exploring two very different perspectives on a city theme. Vintage prints documenting Doisneau’s sixty year love affair with Paris and its inhabitant will be shown alongside urban portraits and nudes by Jason Langer
Robert Doisneau’s name and iconic images have become synonymous with
what we know of 1940s Parisian street life. Doisneau’s Paris is full of
individuals and personalities- they react, respond and converse with
one another- and their backdrop is one of the most familiar cityscapes
in the world.
His great ability was to capture the ordinary and make it both
extraordinary and memorable -a couple in a bistro, an accordion player
or a woman reacting in shock to a painting in a gallery window. His
acute awareness as to how his camera could capture a moment of emotion
still informs advertising and magazine content today, and his empathy
and understanding of urban life created some of the most iconic
photo-story images taken in the 20th Century.
Jason Langer on the other hand captures a city full of secrets. His
images depict individuals whose identities are hidden or are portrayed
in an anonymous, elusive manner- concealed by semi-darkness, blurred,
expression blank, backs turned, or veiled by clothing. The meaning of
the photograph is not apparent but hinted at, as Langer feels “that
people prefer to create their own story and find their own meaning,
instead of having it spelled out for them.”
Langer’s interiors and cityscapes share a sense of privacy and
anonymity, yet the exterior scenes are imbued with identifiable mental
and emotional sense of place- a city we all recognise yet cannot
identify, at once ageless and contemporary. Our exhibition includes
work from New York, Paris and London.
From 25th November to 20th January 2009.
Free entrance