Eli Lotar
Damarice Amao, Clément Chéroux, Michel Frizot, Cédric de Veigy, Pia Viewing
His admirers keep fond memories of the catalogue of the first retrospective by photographer Eli Lotar (1905-1969) at the Centre Pompidou in 1993-1994. The 112 small format pages have now been replaced by a new edition in a larger format, with 224 pages, exactly the double. This is because over the last twenty years the Centre Pompidou received a new donation from collector Jean-Pierre Marchand, and a thesis by Damarice Amao let us better understand certain aspects of the photographer’s work. Therefore the new catalogue is very useful to complete what we knew well: the slaughter houses in la Villette, the Surrealist images, with complete chapters on his relationship with documentaries, such as the one with Joris Ivens on the polders in the Netherlands and with Buñuel in the Extremadura region in Terre sans pain) and on his portraits (Artaud, Bataille, Georges-Henri Rivière, etc.). The little kid from Bucharest, born in Paris from two Rumanian intellectuals but educated by his grand-mother and back in France only in 1924, without any luggage takes up his original position in the avant-gardes of the period between the two World Wars. His later years were not as productive, except for his relationship with Giacometti (exhibition at the Jeu de paume in Paris until 28 May 2017).
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Review published in the newsletter #472 - from 11 May 2017 to 17 May 2017
