Two cultural institutions in Toulouse are joining forces to exhibit nearly 300 photographic works from the early 20th century at the Abattoirs.e century to the present day.
Les Abattoirs, Museum – Frac Occitanie Toulouse © Adagp, Paris, 2024 © photo courtesy of the artist and
from the Rocio Santa Cruz Gallery, Barcelona
In Occitanie, the Abattoirs Museum and the Château d'Eau Gallery have joined forces to immerse us in their respective collections and explore the nature and possibilities of photography. With "Open Your Eyes," nearly 300 works bear witness to the major periods in the history of the medium and its artists since the beginning of the 20th century . A significant undertaking, but one that has been met.
This exhibition is housed in the very heart of Les Abattoirs, which opened in 2000. The gallery, founded by Jean Dieuzaide in 1974, has closed for expansion work until the end of the year. The museum space thus gives way to the work of renowned artists and those ripe for (re)discovery, such as Agnès Varda, André Kertész, William Klein, Alexander Apóstol, Brassaï, Gaël Bonnefon, Ouka Leele, Pilar Albarracín, Jean Dieuzaide, Sabine Weiss, Robert Mapplethorpe, Bernard Plossu, Denis Darzacq, Robert Doisneau…
The dialogue between the two institutions offers a wealth of approaches and techniques, styles and perspectives in an eclectic selection that includes installations designed by Sophie Calle, Annette Messager and Jeff Wall.
History of Photography column
The exhibition is divided into nine sections that explore numerous themes in the evolution of the medium. Beneath the nave of the Abattoirs, the chapter "Photographic Bodies" opens. Here, the physical form becomes "kaleidoscopic." It fragments, liberates itself, and is sublimated, revealing "its history and its particular identity."
Room 01, entitled "On the Spot," explores the beginnings of objective, or "true," photography, capturing the "decisive moment" so dear to Cartier-Bresson. The second, "Parallel Realities," deals with scenes between fiction and reality, while the third, "Sublimating the Banal," celebrates the everyday and the ordinary through framing, light, and color. The following room, "Art and Matter," embarks on a quest for aesthetic innovation, reinterpreting art history through matter and composition. "The Making of the Self" then examines different approaches to portraiture, questioning the meaning and function of interpretation, while "Double Self" is devoted to the self-portrait.
As for the last two sections, they examine the perspectives of places and lines. One contemplates scenes traversing space, whether urban or natural, war-related or agricultural, formal or poetic. The other focuses more on its geometrization and the confrontation of repertoires of forms.
A broad and exceptional panorama, therefore, which explores the photographic medium of the 20th and 21st centuries in all its facets.
Les Abattoirs collection, Musée-Frac Occitanie Toulouse © Adagp, Paris, 2024 © photo courtesy
GP & N Vallois Gallery
Jochen Lempert, A Journey to the North Sea, 2009-2013, polyptych of 9
Photographs, 100,7 x 83,8 cm/photo, Les Abattoirs collection, Musée – Frac Occitanie Toulouse ©
Adagp, Paris, 2024 © photo Yves Chenot / courtesy Cnap, Paris-La Défense
on paper, 140 x 100 cm, Les Abattoirs collection, Musée – Frac Occitanie Toulouse © Adagp, Paris,
2024 © courtesy of the artist and Galerie mor charpentier, Paris
Jeans
Jean Dieuzaide, My Pigeons in My Garden, 1979, black and white silver gelatin print, 65 x
50 cm, Les Abattoirs collection, Musée – Frac Occitanie Toulouse © SAIF © photo Grand Rond
Production
“Open your eyes”
The Slaughterhouses, Museum – Frac Occitanie Toulouse
76, Allées Charles-de-Fitte, Toulouse
Until 18 May 2025
