EXTREME HOTEL Raymond Depardon

EXTREME HOTEL is the name of a hotel in Addis Ababa, a simple place where Raymond Depardon likes to stay during his trips to Ethiopia. A sober base, a quiet place from which to watch the world go by.

The exhibition follows this idea: taking the time to observe our surroundings. It brings together nearly 150 colour photographs, from the 1960s to the present day, and is organised into several series, including La Terre des Paysans (The Land of Farmers), La Datar, USA, Cartagena, Tokyo. These images reveal a dual history: that of the photojournalist, during the heyday of press agencies and striking magazine covers; and that of a man, the son of a farmer, whose gaze gradually shifted towards a freer and more intimate observation of the world.

For this ‘carte blanche’, Raymond Depardon wanted to open his colour archives to the Pavillon Populaire. He presents his publications in the press during his career as a photojournalist: from Queen Elizabeth to the war in Lebanon, from the Olympic Games to the Françoise Claustre affair. Throughout the exhibition, we also discover other, more solitary series in which Raymond Depardon spontaneously photographs places without events, scenes of ordinary life, paying particular attention to colours and light. This exploration continues today with USA, a new series shot with a view camera in Texas, New Mexico and South Dakota.

Each series is a journey, a way of being in the world. Raymond Depardon offers us a colourful exploration of the countries he has travelled through and the feelings that accompanied him during his many stays in the four corners of the globe. By taking us along in his luggage, he teaches us a simple and humanistic form of photography that deeply touches the traveller in each of us.

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