CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 11/19/2020

Virtual Launch Event: Fondation Cartier presents Raymond Depardon in conversation with Clément Chéroux and Pauline Vermare

Thursday, November 19 at 12PM EST, Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain presents photographer and filmmaker Raymond Depardon in conversation with MoMA curator Clément Chéroux and Magnum Cultural Director Pauline Vermare for the virtual launch of Depardon's new monograh, Rural. The conversation will be in French with English subtitles, broadcast on Fondation Cartier's Instagram and Facebook accounts.

Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Raymond Depardon crisscrossed rural France with his 6 x 9 medium format camera by his side. As a result of his explorations, his black-and-white photographs tell the story of the land, the people—including manual labor and the isolation and fragility of small farming—and the beauty of the French countryside.

In October 2020, the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain published Rural, a book gathering this impressive series of 86 black-and-white photographs; a tribute to the photographer’s roots and to the men and women he met during his journey.

During the talk on November 19, Depardon will talk about his travels through France to photograph the land and the farm of his parents, but also about his unique relationship with the United States. He will also share brief extracts of his films—Ten Minutes of Silence for John Lennon (1980) and Modern Life (2008)—discussing the fixed and moving images at the service of a simple and singular narrative.

Raymond Depardon is a French filmmaker, photographer and international journalist who holds a unique place in the field of the contemporary image. In 1967, he co-founded the Gamma Agency, and in 1978, he joined Magnum Photos, for whom he would carry out reports all over the world until the early 1980s. While continuing to practice photography on a daily basis, he turned his attention to documentary filmmaking, using the direct cinema approach.

Clément Chéroux is the newly appointed Joel and Anne Ehrenkranz Chief Curator of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Prior to that, he was Curator (2007–2012) and Chief Curator (2013–2016) of Photography at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Most recently, he held the position of Senior Curator of Photography (2017–2020) at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Clément Chéroux is a French photo-historian and holds a PhD in Art History.

Pauline Vermare is the Cultural Director of Magnum Photos, New York. Before joining Magnum in 2017, she was a curator at the International Center of Photography (ICP), where she worked on several exhibitions and publications. Before joining ICP, she worked at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) on the exhibition and publication Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Modern Century (2009–2010). From 2002 to 2009, she worked at the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson in Paris.