Meeting around "Blur. A photographic history".

delpire & co is pleased to invite you to the launch, on Thursday March 16, of Flou. Une histoire photographique, a book co-published with Photo Elysée. On this occasion, Pauline Martin, curator of the eponymous exhibition currently on view in Lausanne, will present the book, accompanied by Serge Tisseron and Sébastien Lifshitz, both authors of a text in the book.

With Blur. a photographic history, Pauline Martin takes us through the history of photography through the prism of blur, from the invention of the process to the present day. We will discover that, depending on the era, blur is sometimes considered a positive value, sometimes a negative one. In a historical and thematic development, the works presented tell the story of the evolution of this form whose uses have constantly changed according to the times and the practices, whether they were amateur, artistic, scientific, or reportage.

Pauline Martin
A Doctor of art history and curator in charge of exhibitions at Photo Elysée (Lausanne), Pauline Martin has published L’Évidence, le vide, la vie. La photographie face à ses lacunes (Ithaque, 2017) and L’Œil photographique de Daniel Arasse. Théories et pratiques d’un regard (Fage éditions, 2012). She has also curated the exhibitions “reGeneration4. The challenges for photography and its museum of tomorrow” (2020) and “Anonymous: Urban life in contemporary photography” (2016).

Serge Tisseron
A Psychiatrist, doctor in psychology and member of the Academy of Technologies, Serge Tisseron specializes since his thesis in medicine in relation to images. He organized the first exhibition on “The Blur in Photography” at the Rencontres internationales de la photographie in Arles in 1999 and is notably the author of Le Mystère de la chambre claire (Flammarion, 2008).

Sébastien Lifshitz
After studying art history at the École du Louvre, Sébastien Lifshitz turned to cinema and directed numerous feature films and documentaries. Also passionate about photography, he curated the exhibitions “Mauvais Genre” (2016) at the Rencontres d’Arles and “L’Inventaire Infini” (2019) at the Centre Pompidou. A great collector, he presents in Flou a part of his collection of vernacular photographs.

delpire & co invites Sébastien Lifshitz to present a selection of unpublished images from his collection.

“The blurred photographs produced in me a retinal experience first. It was no longer a sociological or societal reading, but first an aesthetic and sensory experience. Rid of its mimetic reproduction of reality, the blur operates a poetic transformation of the subject.”
Sébastien Lifshitz, Blur. A Photographic History