From April 22 to July 23, 2023, the Power Station of Art and the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain present Raymond Depardon, La vie moderne, the first solo exhibition in China of French photographer and filmmaker Raymond Depardon who, since the 1970s, has profoundly redefined the world of contemporary photography.
Showcasing a hundred photographs and one feature film, the exhibition shares the approach of the artist whose visual language is simple and often frontal, keeping the subject in a central position. Always searching for the right distance, Raymond Depardon builds relationships between people and places. He listens and gives others a chance to speak, and projects a humanistic view of the world.
Borrowing his title from the 2008 film, that concluded the Profils paysans trilogy directed in collaboration with Claudine Nougaret, the Raymond Depardon, La vie moderne exhibition recounts the artist's attachment to the rural world and gives an contemporary insight of France, its countryside, peripheral areas, and uneventful places, a vision removed from clichés, the picturesque, or romantic visions. A farmers' son, Raymond Depardon draws a portrait of the world and of himself. By alternating between black and white and colour, he reinvents landscape photography.