Agence VU - Gérard Rondeau
Gérard Rondeau

Whether exploring the wings of a museum, chronicling besieged Sarajevo, discovering the lives of volunteers for Médecins du Monde, or following the Tour de France, Gérard Rondeau always knows how to choose an original angle that escapes stereotypes and clichés.

For twenty years, he has amassed a considerable portrait collection of painters and contemporary writers, particularly one of his friend Paul Rebeyrolle long before the author was widely received or acknowledged. Eclectic, yet nevertheless precise in his projects, Rondeau develops a curious type of photography. It is sensible, demanding, and cultivated ; not merely illustrative.


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Portfolio

Portraits

Stories

Museums (2008)

Under neon light, fingers are lightly touching the headdress of a woman, a sidelong glance, one of the “The Fortune Teller” character painted by Georges de la Tour, three centuries ago. For more than ten years, Gérard Rondeau has photographed museums, and big exhibitions’ backstage. Painting and sculptures appear suddenly wrapped up, tied up in such positions, sometimes delicate or weird – always surprising. Here, in a halo of light, there, cut out in the backlight, the essence of forms, the one that makes pieces art, is grabbed in a graceful lightflash. These photographic moments, without giving in ease of the story, are offer an invigorating vision of the museum space - tinged with...

Mission, Médecins (jusqu'au bout) du Monde (2005)

On 22 December 1989, Gérard Rondeau accompanied the doctors from the humanitarian organization Medecins du Monde, the first to enter the city of Bucharest after the fall of Ceausescu. From that day until the city of Banda Aceh was devastated by the tsunami he undertook to follow the French doctors of Niger in Saint Petersburg, Iraqi Kurdistan in Sarajevo, New York (headquarters of Doctors of the World USA) in Paris at night. His gaze is not only the humanitarian gesture: he is interested in the details, absences, departures, and it works in series, kind of an inventory of lights and paths. Gérard Rondeau with his long and serious work is showing us complete pendants of the contemporean...

Paul Rebeyrolle (2002)

This series of portraits brings us into the world of Paul Rebeyrolle. The naturalist painter invites photographer Gérard Rondeau in his workshop. Man and work are inextricably linked here ... as if they could not live without the other.

The Tour de France (2001)

Gérard Rondeau is following the Tour de France for its 88th edition. We find in this story all the atmosphere of a cyclist race: shot from the road side or from a car, the photos do not forget to take those "aside moments" of the race. The frenzied reading of the daily sport paper l'Equipe, the winding roads are also part of the panorama...even the American flag that consacrates the third victory of Lance Armstrong.

About Louise Bourgeois (1993)

Some portraits of the French visual artist on the occasion of her retrospective dedicated by Beaubourg.

Books

Chroniques d'un portraitiste

Voyage au pays des intellectuels et des artistes sous forme de portraits photographiques réalisés par Gérard Rondeau.
Text by: Gérard Rondeau, préface de Philippe Dagen, postface de Michèle Champenois

Publisher: Editions du Seuil (2006)
223 pages
Size: 28x24 cm
ISBN :2-02-065644-2  

Missions: médecins (jusqu'au bout) du monde

Le 22 décembre 1989, Gérard Rondeau accompagnait les médecins de l'organisation humanitaire Médecins du Monde, les premiers à entrer dans la ville de Bucarest après la chute de Ceaucescu. Son regard ne concerne pas seulement le geste humanitaire: il s'intéresse aux détails, aux absences, aux départs; il fonctionne en séries, sortes d'inventaires de lumières et de chemins empruntés.

Publisher: Editions du Seuil (2005)
256 pages
Size: 19,8x26,3 cm
ISBN :2020796589  

Hors Cadre

Plus de dix années durant, Gérard Rondeau a photographié les coulisses des musées et des grandes expositions. Tableaux et sculptures surgissent enveloppés, enrubannés, en position, parfois délicates ou incongrues - toujours surprenantes.
Text by: Jean Clair, Christian Caujolle

Publisher: Réunion des Musées Nationaux (2005)
192 pages
ISBN :2711849821  

Voyages au Bénin

Journal de voyage du photographe Gérard Rondeau, ce récit en images est un hommages aux paysages et à la communauté intellectuelle et artistique du Bénin.
Text by: Florent Couao-Zotti, Gérard Rondeau

Publisher: L'Arganier (2004)
176 pages
Size: 17x24 cm
ISBN :2-91-272812-6  

Sur les lieux du regard

This book contains a selection of the photographs Gérard Rondeau took, between 1991 and 2001, in French national museums and during the installation of temporary exhibitions in the Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris.
Text by: Alain Madeleine-Perdrillat, Jean-Louis Poitevin, André Velter

Publisher: Artha (2003)
106 pages
Size: 17x24 cm
ISBN :2-84845-016-9  

Les Fantômes du Chemin des Dames

Un travail photographique nourri d’archives né de 15 ans d’amitié. Images d’une vie, de rencontres, d’une œuvre, du temps qui passe. Des photographies documentées et légendées, soulignées par des textes, inédits ou non, d’Yves Gibeau ou de ceux qui l’ont connu et aimé… pour un voyage dans les pas de Gibeau, dans un univers balayé par les traces de la Der des Ders.
Text by: Yves Gibeau

Publisher: Editions du Seuil (2003)
286 pages
Size: 23x29 cm
ISBN :2020613948  

L'abbaye de Fontevraud

Un voyage insolite dans des lieux invisibles et secrets. Inlassablement, au cœur et à l’entour du monastère, arpentant le site jour et nuit pour en déjouer les ombres et les lumières, les évidences et les profondeurs, Gérard Rondeau a su, avec sa sensibilité et son infaillible regard, capter la poésie, l’esprit et la force du lieu, les signes de la foi et ceux de la souffrance.
Text by: Chantal Colleu-Dumond

Publisher: Robert Laffont (2001)
121 pages
Size: 20x26 cm
ISBN :2221096002  

L'échappée libre

Pas de Tour de France sans vainqueur. Flashé, mitraillé, assailli, nul n'ignore le maillot jaune en sa solitude hautaine. Mais le Tour de France, c'est aussi les dévoués, les audacieux, la foule agglutinée, extasiée et présente partout toujours, c'est la solitude des cyclistes, leurs souffrances et leurs espoirs, la nostalgie des anciens, toujours là... De l'ombre à la lumière, de la foule à l'intimité, ce sont tous ces moments que Gérard Rondeau a apprivoisés lyrisme et passion, dépouillement et ascétisme. 2001, dans les entrailles du Tour de France.
Text by: Michel Onfray (préface)

Publisher: Editions du seuil (2001)
190 pages
Size: 24x18 cm
ISBN :2020518538  

Rebeyrolle, ou le journal d'un peintre

Le déclic de l’appareil photo peut-il transmettre une qualité d’émotion ? La connivence entre le photographe Rondeau et le peintre Rebeyrolle propose des situations poétiques particulières. Le clair-obscur de la photo permet d’apprivoiser l’énergie latente appelée inspiration.
Text by: Jean François Jaegger (préface)

Publisher: Ides et Calendes (2001)
152 pages
Size: 12x17 cm
ISBN :2-8258-0172-0  

Photographier la guerre ? - Bosnie, Croatie, Kosovo

Six perceptions de la guerre dans les Balkans à travers le travail de photographes, sous la direction de Christian Caujolle
Text by: Michel Butor et Christian Caujolle

Publisher: Editions de l'Imprimeur (2000)
132 pages
ISBN :2910735370  

Le Maroc/Hommage à Delacroix

Du Maroc, Gérard Rondeau rapporte des images impressionnistes, des visions de nuit, des passants devenus formes ou sculptures qu'il croise dans la rue. L'oeil de Delacroix se souvenait rapidement, pour guider sa main, d'une scène qu'il venait de voir. L'appareil de Rondeau enregistre, sur son ordre et dans le cadrage qu'il a déterminé, l'organisation des formes telles qu'elles se meuvent devant lui.

Publisher: EDDIF/Presses du Languedoc (1999)
135 pages
ISBN :2-85998-218-3  

Marelle-mémoire

Marelle-mémoire se veut une fugue qui mêle l'espace et le temps, l'histoire et les sites de la région Champagne-Ardenne. Prétexte à la déambulation des auteurs (l'un Champenois, l'autre Ardennais), le patrimoine y est redécouvert de façon sensible, offrant au lecteur autant de dérives imaginaires qu'il y a de monuments à contempler. En annexe, sont répertoriés, illustrés et légendés, tous les lieux visités.
Text by: André Velter

Publisher: Marval (1998)
ISBN :2-86234-258-0  

Le silence et rien alentour

Zlato Dizdarevic est journalise à l'unique quotidien libre de Sarajevo, Oslobodenje. Gérard Rondeau est photographe. Ils se connaissent bien pour s'être retrouvés plusieurs fois depuis la guerre. Tous deux dessinent ici, dans la tension à deux voix entre des textes et des images, une façon de faire du journalisme. Par nécessité et avec sincérité.
Text by: Zlatko Dizdarevic

Publisher: Actes sud (1994)
74 pages
Size: 20.2x14.6 cm
ISBN :2-7427-0257-1  

Awards


    2007 - Globes de Cristal Award

    1997 - Atlas Award

Exhibitions



Les Fantômes du Chemin des Dames. Le presbytère d’Yves Gibeau. (Oulches-La-Vallée-Foulon)
From 2010-04-16 to 2010-11-15

Former quarry situated in the heart of “Chemin des Dames” and a high strategic place of World War I, the Cave of the Dragoon was transformed by the German unities in 1915 into underground barracks constituted of military posts and places of life. It became a museum in 1969 and stands as a place of memory welcoming "Les Fantômes du Chemin des Dames" exhibition which is the result/outcome of the collaboration between the photographer Gérard Rondeau and the writer Yves Gibeau. This exhibition comes along with a book published in Editions du Seuil.

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Notre histoire, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1992-1995 (Paris)
From 2010-04-07 to 2010-05-03

Since 1994, year in which the Centre was created, a great number of artists, writers, filmakers, photographers, translators supported it. In 2009, with the occasion of its 15th anniversary, the Centre organizes a collective photography exhibition, “Our History” Through extracts of his work “Le silence et rien alentour”, Gerard Rondeau shows his testimony about Croatia and Bosnia of 1993-1994. Agnes b. proposes to discover this exhibition in Paris.

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Our History (Sarajevo)
From 2009-12-18 to 2010-01-15

Since 1994, year in which the Centre was created, a great number of artists, writers, filmakers, photographers, translators supported it. In 2009, with the occasion of its 15th anniversary, the Centre organizes a collective photography exhibition, “Our History” Through extracts of his work “Le silence et rien alentour”, Gerard Rondeau shows his testimony about Croatia and Bosnia of 1993-1994.

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Missions: doctors (until the end) of the world (Reims)
From 2009-11-19 to 2009-12-15

Since 1989, when Doctors of the World entered Bucarest, freed from the yoke of Ceaucescu, Gérard Rondeau has been following this organization all around the world: from Nigeria to Saint Petersburg, from Kurdistan to Sarajevo, New York and Paris. In his work, Rondeau shows the places and the people of this contemporary adventure.

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Sculpture photographie: un horizon commun (Sceaux)
From 2009-06-26 to 2009-12-20

Since 2006, a big collective photographic exhibition is organised in the Parc de Sceaux. This year the thema is the relations between architecture and photography. A photography of Gérard Rondeau will be shown in this collective exhibition.

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Vues sur cours (Châlon-en-Champagne)
From 2009-05-16 to 2009-08-30


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Chronicles of a portrait photographer (New York,NY)
From 2009-04-27 to 2009-05-29

Susan Sontag, Gore Vidal, Jeff Koons, Nadine Gordimer, Louise Bourgeois…This eclectic assortment of authors and artists share one thing in common: all have been photographed by Gérard Rondeau, and their portraits, along with 95 others, will be on display at the Cultural Services of the French Embassy from April 27 to May 29, on the occasion of the PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature. Gérard Rondeau has photographed hundreds of celebrities from all walks of life, ranging from Carla Bruni to Léo Castelli, often for the French newspaper Le Monde. For this edition of his...

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Chronicles of a portrait photographer (Gap Cedex)
From 2009-04-07 to 2009-06-27

Gérard Rondeau has been photographing numerous figures for more than twenty years, usually for the daily newspaper Le Monde : Patricia Highsmith and Max Bill in Switzerland, Franck Stella, Keith Haring, Louise Bourgeois and Roy Liechtenstein in New York, Antoni Tapies in Barcelona, Baselitz in his country house in Germany and Paul Rebyrolle in his workshop in Burgundy, Nathalie Sarraute, Jacques Derrida, Samuel Fuller, Andre Dhôtel and Albert Cossery at home, in Paris, Mohammed Choukri and Paul Bowles in Tangiers, etc... Rondeau uses this series of encounters to offer a journey to the land of...

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Gérard Rondeau (Ouagadougou)
From 2009-02-27 to 2009-03-21


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The Chemin des Dames (EYMOUTIERS)
From 2008-11-09 to 2009-03-15

This exhibition devoted to the memory of the Chemin des Dames takes us on a journey in the footsteps of Yves Gibeau, to all the places he never tired of travelling around, into the memories he collected since he retired to the presbytery of Roucy. The man Gérard Rondeau followed in his immobile travels was an obsessive, haunted by the din of war. These photographs conjure up the paradoxical pilgrim and the painful places fill of memories which haunted him. They allow us to share both in the man's private life and in the universality of war. Gérard Rondeau began working alongside Yves Gibeau...

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Photographs (Dormans)
From 2008-09-20 to 2008-11-11

This exhibition devoted to the memory of the Chemin des Dames takes us on a journey in the footsteps of Yves Gibeau, to all the places he nerver tired of travelling around, into tje memories he collected since he retired to the presbytery of Roucy. The man Gérard Rondeau followed in his immobile travels was an obsessive, haunted by the din of war. These photographs conjure up the paradoxical pilgrim and the painful places full of memories which haunted him. They allow us to share both in the man's private life and in the universality of war. Gérard Rondeau began working alongside Yves Gibeau...

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