Bruno Réquillart

After Jacques Henri Lartigue, at the Château de Tours, the Jeu de Paume explore a radically different photographic style in the solo show devoted to Bruno Réquillart. The exhibition, conceived in close collaboration with Bruno Réquillart (born in 1947 in Marcq-en-Baroeul), proposes a retrospective survey of his past work and unveils for the first time his work in progress. Made up of 140 prints, the
itinerary allows one to understand a procedure composed of gaps and ruptures, but which, paradoxically, reveals an unusual degree of constancy and richness.

However, some points in common link Bruno Réquillart to Jacques Henri Lartigue: the donation to
the state during their lifetime of a considerable part of their work, the importance of their own life
and the personal in the creative act and, finally, this instinct for the moment or a real foresight for
the image.
“Certain photographs, I no longer know which, but I remember the feeling, were born from a
sudden turning around. As if a presence, in my back summoned me: it was a photo,” explained
Bruno Réquillart in 1994. Indeed, each of his images results from an opening up in face of the
event, an acute perception of space and, above all, a rare and rigorous mastery of construction.
Bruno Réquillart’s career began in 1968 reporting the libertarian and militant mood of his generation at the time. His encounter with Maurice Béjart and the Ballet du XXe siècle, which he photographed over three years, is emblematic of this. But the photographic experience would soon be pursued by him away from documents and commissions to concentrate on the everyday and the places he knew.

His procedure thus became conceptual, taking up the inventory and accumulation of supposedly
insignificant subjects (series called Constats [Records] and show urban elements: iron shutters, advertising panels, tree trunks, etc.): “at the time I had a sort of bulimia for images, I took shots but I didn’t develop my negatives,” he recounts today. But his visual curiosity also reveals a
personal story, an introspection, and a need for taking stock. The work, punctuated by a few
trips in Europe, stopped suddenly in 1981. Convinced that he was finished with photography,
Réquillart devoted himself to painting “to try something else” and soon made a donation to the
state (in 1992) of his negatives, his slides and his prints.

After an absence from photography that lasted nearly twenty years, a renewal and return to the
practice occurred. Since 2000, he has been photographing the Parisian landscape with the help
of a panoramic camera. The town, his living place, is once again scrutinised like an endless visual
source but its representation, no doubt due to the format, is enriched by countless details, like
numerous microphenomena or anecdotes observed on his promenades.

To watch the video portrait:

CURATORS
Michaël Houlette, curator and coordinator of exhibitions, Jeu de Paume, and Matthieu
Rivallin, head of collections for the Multimedia library for architecture and heritage, Paris.

PARTNERS
Exhibition organised together with the Jeu de Paume and the city of Tours, in collaboration with the Multimedia library for architecture and heritage, Paris.

In partnership with Faribole, L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui, France Bleu Touraine and France Inter.

CHÂTEAU DE TOURS
25 avenue André Malraux – 37000 Tours
Tél. : 02 47 70 88 46