The 2022 Nobel Prize-winning writer has been interested in photography for a long time, notably in the text “the use of photography”, a four-handed story published in 2006. At the European House of Photography, on the banks of the Seine , flourishes the exhibition Exteriors - Annie Ernaux & Photography until May 26, 2024.
The second floor of this institution gave the writer carte blanche to illustrate photos from her collection with extracts from her book “Journal du Dehors”, itself being a literary photograph of the urban world on the outskirts of Paris.
Annie Ernaux, ©M. Bornhauser
It is a literature of everyday life, which highlights our actions and actions. References to boutiques, hair salons, supermarket shopping carts, and cafes crop up from page to page. “A shopping cart overturned in the grass, very far from the shopping center, like a forgotten toy.” Annie Ernaux also writes “I am overcome by people, their existence, like a whore”.
The photos in this exhibition cover the period from 1940 to 2021 and are rooted in a French landscape but also North American, Japanese, English and Singaporean. This kaleidoscope is brought together by themes dear to Annie Ernaux.
It addresses the interior and exterior, the public and the intimate, and the urban environment as the site of various scenes. All of this makes you want to reread the Journal du exterior. Hats off to the artist.
Until 26 May 2024
▼ “Exterior” –Annie Ernaux
European House of Photography
5/7 Rue de Fourcy, 75004 Paris
Wednesday to Friday from 11 a.m. to 20 p.m.
Saturday and Sunday from 10 p.m. to 20 a.m.
Closed on monday and tuesday
Tel: +01 44 78 75 00
Text: Valérie Rodrigue
13.03.24
