Five new exhibitions at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie

Image: Maison Européenne de la Photographie.

Text: Rooksana Hossenally.

The Maison Européene de la Photographie (MEP) is one of those key venues that is internationally renowned for showing work by high-profile photographers. And this week was no exception with the launch of five brand new exhibitions. If you’re going to be in the area it’s worth popping in to see William Ropp’s stunning portraits. But the other works on show, including Götz Göppert’s panoramic night shots of Paris, Dominique Isserman’s Laetitia Casta, Youssef Nabil’s Egyptian mise-en-scènes and the series, Eloges du vertige, might leave you feeling somewhat underwhelmed.

The four floors are divided up between the five photographers’ work. From top to bottom: Eloges du vertige and Youssef Nabil, followed by Isserman and the second part of Eloges du vertige on the next floor, then Ropp on first and Götz Göppert in the basement.

Ropp’s incredible series of 20 portraits really stood out from the others. A stupefying eye for etching figures out of shadows, he knows exactly how to capture the “…nooks and crannies of our most intimate souls…” (Geraldine Schrepfen - author). His photographs are proof of what Daney, the influential French film critic, describes as “great trust in light” as he makes the invisible visible, using the light to erode away certain parts of his composition burning it like acid. This gives his portraits an appealing yet eerie atmosphere.

There is nothing conventional about Ropp’s portraits. A mishmash of greys, sometimes blurred, sometimes in focus and most the time, a mix of both, he captures his subjects as though they were confiding their darkest secret to him. For example, the print, Orphanage, Russia (2008), in which a child is photographed holding a crow up to the camera, squeezing it just a little too tightly.

There is an unsettling ambiance in most of his work. However, the series, Dreamt Memories from Africa, which is shown as a slideshow on a screen as part of the exhibition, is less dark. A veritable photographic feat, it shows the intimate relationship between two young African brothers – the light here snakes and slides like slithers of silver along the boys’ dark skin, giving his shots a hypnotic, poetic quality.

On the next floor up, we found Dominique Isserman’s 33 shots of Laetitia Casta, the famous French model and actress renowned for her unusual beauty, to have an obvious sensuality without necessarily falling into eroticism. Casta is clearly Isserman’s muse. He first shows his anticipation as he waits for her to meet him in the first few shots where the model’s shadow appears on the walls as she approaches him. The model is photographed in hot springs designed by architect, Pete Zumthor (in Vals, Switzerland). The minimalist lines of the spa-building act as a powerful contrast to the voluptuous curves of Casta’s naked body. The work is beautiful, but so clean-cut that it seems that the photographer hasn’t left much else for the viewer to discover.

Eloges du vertige (Institute Itau Cultural collection) is interesting as far as understanding the step away from conventional photography in Brazil, where the pace is slower than in Europe (where experimental photography has already emerged). Some pieces are unusual like Night visions by Luis Braga and Claudia Andujar’s Yanomami dream – a well constructed reflection of a shaman’s state of mind when in a trance - but not the groundbreaking edge of the collection.

Lastly, the first retrospective of well-known Egyptian photographer, Youssef Nabil, evolves very much like a storyboard for snippets of classical Egyptian films through portraits of his friends and celebrities including Catherine Deneuve, Charlotte Rampling and Alicia Keys. There is also a series of self-portraits in which it seems the photographer is sharing visual diary entries about his everyday life with the viewer. The quality of the light, the colours and the calculated poses of his subjects give each work an artificiality, which unfortunately is not as moving as one may have hoped.

Eloge du vertige – Itau, Brazil Collection, Youssef Nabil, Laetitia Casta - Dominique Isserman, The Sculptor of Shadows - William Ropp and Four Seaons - Götz Göppert until 25 March 2012 at the Maison Européenne de la photographie (MEP), 5/7 rue de Fourcy – 75004 Paris.

Open daily from 11h00 to 20h00 (closed Mondays, Tuesdays and bank holidays). Tickets: 7 Euros. Metro: Saint Paul (L1) or Pont Marie (L7).