In Rennes, Raymond Depardon inaugurates a double exhibition on Algeria and the Olympic Games

Until January 5, 2025, Frac Bretagne and Champs Libres decide to join forces to give pride of place to the great French photojournalist.

He never leaves his camera, even when he opens an exhibition. Raymond Depardon, 88 years old, has traveled the world to tell in images his vision of society.

As part of the Explora festival in Rennes, two exhibitions are dedicated to him until January 5, 2025 at the Champs Libres cultural space and at the FRAC de Bretagne.

The Champs Libres exhibition entitled His eye in my hand – Algeria 1961 & 2019 traces the close link that Raymond Depardon maintains with the country. The year is 1961, the young photographer is only 19 years old when the Dalmas press agency sends him to Algeria. He captures looks, smiles and scenes of life in a country in the grip of the last tremors of the war of independence. His photos bear witness to a period of great doubts. “These street photos that seem like nothing but tell us a lot of things”, he explains to visitors. “It opened me up to others, to tolerance, to Africa and it forced me to find this place which is sometimes difficult among people who suffer.” says the photographer again. Although these photos may not seem like much, they tell a lot about an era. “If you look closely at the faces, the postures, the clothes and the background they are full of micro details”, analyzes Yves-Marie Guivarch, programming manager at Champs Libres.

Alongside old photos, the route also presents photos from today. In 2019, when he wanted to publish these photographs from 1961 for the first time, Raymond Depardon made a new trip to Algiers. “We decided to come and say hello to people like tourists,” he remembers.

After photographing Algiers, he went to Oran where he met the writer Kamel Daoud with whom he toured the city. From there, the idea was born of a book and an exhibition bringing together photos from Depardon’s two trips and the Algerian author’s texts. Throughout the exhibition, the public is invited to slip into the lives of Algerians in two different eras, 1961 and 2019, to discover the evolution of the country. “There is a lot of youth and hope in Algiers,” assures the photographer.

The Regional Contemporary Art Fund explores the tenuous relationship between Raymond Depardon and the Olympic Games from 1964 to 1980. The adventure begins in Tokyo when he is sent to cover the event in 1964. He knows nothing about sport, but he captures the faces and bodies of athletes as he always has: as close as possible to his subject. To recount the trials he learns that, to capture the beauty of the moment, you have to anticipate it. This is how he manages to immortalize the despair of Michel Jazy after his defeat in the 5,000 meter event.

Four years later, in 1968, he photographed Colette Besson winning the 400 meters in Mexico and Jean-Claude Killy’s legendary Olympic hat-trick in Grenoble for the Winter Games. In 1976, he was impressed by the grace and perfection of Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci in Montreal. She gets seven times the maximum score, he takes one of his most beautiful photos.

Driven by his expertise as a great reporter, Raymond Depardon freezes other moments, historical facts which go far beyond the sporting field. In 1972, during the Munich Olympic Games, he witnessed the Israeli delegation being taken hostage by a Palestinian commando. In a final reflex, Raymond Depardon captures the last moments of a sportsman taken hostage. “Just before the bus leaves, an Israeli athlete stares into the lens, it’s this man’s last look before he dies,” explains Etienne Bernard, director of the Frac.

Divided into six sections corresponding to the six Olympics photographed by Raymond Depardon, the exhibition paints in 165 photographs a sporting, political and geopolitical portrait of a world in the midst of the Cold War.

Because history and politics have always been at the center of the photojournalist’s approach. De Gaulle, Mitterrand, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, Jacques Chirac, Jean-Marie Le Pen or even Martine Aubry and Nicolas Sarkozy, for him the political photo is like the war photo: a witness.

In the current context of the rise of the far right and the dissolution of the National Assembly by Emmanuel Macron, he regrets not being able to be this witness. “Today I would take the faces of the politicians, the tension, the anger of the people, there are beautiful things which must be lost because no one is filming”, he laments on the set of France 3 Bretagne.

I hope that there will be a start and that people will come together to avoid the worst

Raymond Depardon

photographer

Raymond Depardon “The Olympic Games 1964-1980” at the FRAC de Bretagne until January 5, 2025.

“His eye in my hand”, Raymond Depardon and Kamel Daoud / Algeria 1961 & 2019 at the Champs Libres until January 5, 2025.