On the 10th anniversary of her tragic death at the age of 46, Jane Birkin's eldest daughter is the subject of a retrospective designed to show the diversity of her still little-known work, from her portraits to her fashion photos, landscapes and other "out-of-frame" photographs. A world of fragility and poetry that cannot leave anyone indifferent.
"[...] she sweeps away worn poses and reflexes [...] she wipes the slate clean of gimmicks, erasing caricature. It's Vanessa stripped of hair and style, it's Laetitia's look, the forgotten body... It's Emmanuelle's doubt. [...] KB revealed to us all what we had hidden from ourselves, never content with anything other than the absolute." This is an eloquent portrait of Kate Barry by her half-sister Lou Doillon. It reveals the sensitive, exacting eye, on the lookout for authenticity, of a photographer with an offbeat view of the world.
AN OFFBEAT LOOK
These self-portraits reveal the same propensity for simplicity as all his other works, whether his fashion photos, such as those for the mother-daughter campaign for Comptoir des Cotonniers in 2003-2006, or his Gueules de Rungis series, produced to mark the 40th anniversary of the famous Les Halles market in 2009, or, above all, his landscapes—the most personal and accomplished aspect of his work, and also the most original. " Marginal or abandoned places, the locations photographed are imbued with melancholy , " notes Sylvain Besson. He adds: " Kate Barry has created a delicate, fragile body of work that encourages introspection. Those close to her describe her landscapes as her 'true' photographic work, the closest to her personality, the one in which her concerns and silences are best expressed. "
October 2, 2001
October 2, 2000
How can we not also be moved, when we know of her painful existence and the tragic circumstances of her disappearance, by this plunge down a staircase descending steeply onto a deserted beach, by this cement wall and a tree lost in the middle of a desert, or by this blocked landscape showing the improbable face-to-face between the facade of a council flat and a rock face reflected on wet ground?...
1 Pierre Lescure on "C à vous", September 4, 2023 on France 5, on " Les photos profondes de Kate Barry ".
"KATE BARRY. MY OWN SPACE"
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