French. Born in 1957 in Caen. Has been living in Paris since 1981.
Pierre-Olivier Deschamps’ in-depth knowledge of photographic techniques, in all fields and formats, has enabled him to carry out intense photographic work on assignment while developing personal initiatives fine-tuned to suit his every purpose. A demanding realist, he eases from work for lifestyle magazines to portraits and from Moroccan travel to architectural analysis. For several years he has been creating work in the field of still life and architecture and going beyond the constraints of representation to underline its challenges. Throughout all his work there are reflection of his beginnings when a dialogue with Claude Bricage allowed him to confront his need to transform theatrical photography and escape mere reproduction.
In 2010, one picture of his series Residence won a World Press Photo Award for contemporary issues.
"Twenty years ago, reading In Praise of Shadows by Jun'ichiro Tanizaki led me to travel to Japan to carry out an illustrated report. I left, thinking I would work with minimalism and outlines. My exile and my status of gaijin, stranger, made me understand that I was not invited to celebrate the archetypes dear to the Japanese culture, neither there nor anywhere else, but to take up the modest role of a passer-by, enjoying the light, the grain of the material, the lightness of the air, and their unexpectedness.
This pure pleasure of an aesthetic which believes that “beauty is not only in the thing itself but in the pattern of the shadows”, as Tanizaki puts it, is what is still haunting me...
The prestigious luxury brand Hermes goes eco-friendly. In 2009, Hermes launched the brand petit h, which concept is to re-use post-production offcuts from the “Grand H” brand. Pascale Mussard, founder and artistic director of petit h decided to gather competences between artists and craftmen to give birth to unique pieces or limited series, which will soon be sold in various Hermes boutiques wordlwide.
A Hermes bag is made from a unique piece of leather, and only in its best and smoothest part. Any other part which does not respond to the highest quality standard of the brand is rejected from production. The idea to re-use these high quality leather offcuts lead to a new eco-friendly...
View of the Acropolis Museum in Athens, built by the architect Bernard Tschumi.
The Greek light marks the time passing through the day and makes a giant sundial of the Acropolis Museum; it was the initial intuition of this photographic series.
The contrast marked by the black and white and the shadows, the passer-by, the tourists, the amateur photographers. The daily life on the museum’s terrace and the Athenian people who look like runaway and pictorial figures in the morning light. And the shadow of the photographer and his tripod. All those things had to fill out this series.
But what I couldn’t imagine, following this light swivel thread, is that the interior of the museum...
Nowadays in Paris, traces of shelters on the street for a marginalized humanity. Sometimes several hours a night or a day, sometimes weeks or whole months spent in these frail shelters.
Intimate spaces separated by borders often invisible. The hot-air inlet or the niche of a wall as foundations. The imprint of the lying body. Outside and inside reversed.
Architect: Peter Zumthor
The spa of Vals, in Grisons county in Switzerland, was built between 1993 and 1997 by Peter Zumthor. This Swiss architect studied woodworking through his learning. He thought of a space where the materials used allows the water to gushes. The mineral, the centre of attention, is also essential in the creation of each of these images.
Unlike the traditional silver latent image, the digital acquisition and immediacy proclaimed me to initiate this daily photography work, but sometimes marked by moments of banality from the depicted subjects.
Also, when recurrent obsessions and composition of light, solitude and counting have emerged, the first images have shown the repetition and the apparent banality- the feeling of « déjà vu » - the human conscience is bound only to sensation of an eternal present, even heavier in the past and toward the future.
This apparent temporal straitjacket, the photography suddenly seem particularly conducive to demonstrate an interrogation on the contemplation, in particular the...
Just back from the Seguin Island and the Museum of Contemporary art in Luxembourg, where he has been for some time, Pierre-Olivier Deschamps goes on a 4x5 inch camera trip in Paris. How can you avoid postcard pictures, corrupt traditional "images d'Epinal" scenes ? By unearthing each crack of the museumlike city, standing back to look at monuments to see them as State-made view-points. Here, the photographer conjures away to privilege one detail or, create minute distortions to instil chaos, or add a collage to create a diversion.
Where is he running to ? How did the Spirit of the Bastille emerge in this fashion ? Amidst the tensions dominating public areas, this delicate, almost close to...
Architectures et paysages industriels : L'invention d'un patrimoine
"L'ambition de ce livre est double : donner d’abord à voir, à travers une sélection de trente sites, un échantillonnage marquant du patrimoine industriel en France, datant du xve au xxe siècle ; proposer ensuite une histoire de l’industrie française un peu différente des récits habituels, à partir précisément de ce que peut nous apprendre ce patrimoine. Ces sites ont tous la particularité d’exister encore aujourd’hui ; les bâtiments qui les constituent et les paysages qu’ils forment ont traversé le temps jusqu’à pouvoir être photographiés au cours de l’année 2012."
Longtemps ignorés, voire méprisés, les bâtiments industriels suscitent depuis quelques années en France intérêt et reconnaissance : à mesure qu'historiens, architectes et institutions en font l'étude, veillent à leur préservation, à leur réhabilitation, ces édifices acquièrent valeur de patrimoine.
Trente sites d'exception choisis sur tout le territoire retracent ici les grandes étapes de l'histoire industrielle française à travers ses architectures singulières : corderie, manufacture de draps, forges, saline, arsenal, mines, chocolaterie, centrale nucléaire, raffinerie de pétrole...
Ces usines, qu'elles soient encore en activité ou reconverties en musée, banque ou logements, témoignent des révolutions techniques et des avancées sociales portées par l'industrie du XVè à la fin du XXè siècle.
Ces lieux ont façonné nos paysages urbains et ruraux, leurs murs racontent une histoire humaine. Ils sont une part essentielle de notre mémoire. Text by: Jean-François Belhoste & Paul Smith Publisher: Editions de la Martinière (2012) 272 pages Size: 32 x 25 cm ISBN :2732446068
Maisons d'architectes à Paris, visites privées : De 1920 à nos jours
Ce sont des visites, parfois inédites, de maisons réalisées par des architectes des années 1920 à nos jours, à Paris et en région parisienne, que propose ce bel ouvrage, préfacé par Claude Parent. On pourra ainsi découvrir ou redécouvrir la maison-atelier Ozenfant de Le Corbusier, la maison-atelier Bachelet d'André Lurçat villa Seurat, dans le 14e arrondissement, l'hôtel Martel de Robert Mallet-Stevens dans le 16e, la maison André Bloc et la maison n°7 de Jean Prouvé à Meudon, ou encore la maison-agence de Christophe Lab dans le 19e ou la maison Trapèze de Louis Paillard à Montreuil.
Qu'elles soient historiques ou contemporaines, toutes ces réalisations illustrent l'art de vivre dans une maison d'architecte. Car cet ouvrage entend offrir un regard nouveau sur la vie domestique qui s'est installée dans ces maisons remarquables, que nous connaissons souvent à travers des photos exemptes de la vie humaine. Les habitants de ces lieux qui ont accepté de jouer le jeu nous ont ouvert leurs portes et raconté leurs histoires, toujours singulières. Text by: Maryse Quinton et Claude Parent Publisher: Editions de la Martinière (2010) 311 pages Size: 2732440558
Architectures
Conçu comme une enquête avec les bâtiments comme seuls témoins, ce livre, né de la collection de films Architectures de Richard Copans et Stan Neumann, est une plongée passionnante dans les mécaniques de la création, une invitation à se forger un regard sur l'architecture. Text by: Richard Copans, Stan Neumann Publisher: Editions du chene (2007) 192 pages ISBN :9782842777050
Awards
2010 - World Press Photo: Contemporary Issues First Prize Singles (with "Residence")
1991 - AFAA Grant
1987 - "Moins Trente" National Center of the Photography Award
Nowadays in Paris, traces of shelters on the street for a marginalized humanity. Sometimes several hours a night or a day, sometimes weeks or whole months spent in these frail shelters.Intimate spaces separated by borders often invisible. The hot-air inlet or the niche of a wall as foundations. The imprint of the lying body. Outside and inside reversed.
This exhibition presents photographs from a collection of a kind it would be impossible to put together, grouping together six remarkable buildings from the history of 20th century European architecture.
Six milestones, crucial witnesses to the development of architectural thought and the century’s technical and aesthetic breakthroughs; the Casa Milà in Barcelona (Antonio Gaudí), the Bauhaus in Dessau (Walter Gropius), The Convent of La Tourette (Le Corbusier), the Maison Familiale in Nancy (Jean Prouvé), the Jewish Museum of Berlin (Daniel Libeskind), and the Phaeno in Wolfburg (Zaha...
Presented for the first time in public in Paris, this exhibition is the result of an initiatory journey in Japan, conducted in 1991 and inspired by the reading of an essay on Japanese aesthetics - "The Praise of Shadow" by Junichiro Tanizaki - which profoundly affected the photographer. In his book, Tanizaki defends an aesthetic of the penumbra, in response to Western aesthetics where excessive light prevails. During his trip to Japan, Deschamps followed this thread and turned his gaze on a culture of imprinted details and the refinements of the art of staging beauty assume paramount...
Associated with the World Press Photo, Prize of Prague awards is given every year by the mayor of Prague.\rRealised in Paris, « Résidence » shows traces of shelters on the street for a marginalized humanity. Sometimes several hours a night or a day, sometimes weeks or whole months spent in these frail shelters. Intimate spaces separated by borders often invisible. The hot-air inlet or the niche of a wall as foundations. The imprint of the lying body. Outside and inside reversed.
1997 FIACRE Grant winner 1991 AFAA Grant winner 1991 Léonard de Vinci Grant winner 1987 “Moins Trente” Award from the National Center of Photography - France
Expositions
2007 Group exhibition, 80+80 photo_graphisme, VU' Gallery and Anatome Gallery – Paris - France 2007 Architectures, CAUE Sceaux - France 2007 Architectures, VU Gallery', Paris - France 2006 Ile Seguin, Emotion Gallery, Paris - France 2006 Group exhibition, VU à Paris, MK2 movie theaters, Paris - France 2005 Museum of Modern Art of the Grand Duché du Luxembourg
Parutions
Elle Déco
Figaro Magazine
Mariages
Monsieur
Bibliographie
2007 Architectures, Ed. Le Chêne 2006 Agence VU, Photo Poche / Actes Sud, France (collectif) 2006 VU à Paris, Panini Books, France (collectif)
Corporate
Commission Européenne
Conseil Régional d’Ile de France
HSBC
Musée d'Art Moderne du Grand Duché du Luxembourg
Proskaeur Rose
RMN
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