While one of his favourite subjects has been dogs (to which he has devoted an entire book), it would be totally unfair to reduce Michel Vanden Eeckhoudt’s amusing but sad work to anything less than a troubling look into the relationships between pets and their masters.
Coming from a tradition of reportage linked intimately with the press, he began his personal work with ensembles devoted to the “Concours belges” and immigrants to his country. Since he began looking through his Leica’s viewfinder, he has created pure and elegant photographs marked by a constant sense of humour. This balance has allowed him to adopt a fair and playful distance from what is going on before his eyes. His resulting compositions are arranged with a steady eye while managing to transform real life moments into often mysterious images without reverting to the anecdotal.
Although he often provokes a smile, this initial reaction turns instantly to a series of questions on the nature of what he is showing us. His effective use of reflections is especially troubling in this regard. In this sense – or the absence of sense – he acknowledges the attitudes or situations of his subjects.
The Yoruk or « those who walk », claim to have pure Turkish roots. They are the last nomadic shepherds of Turkey. Only a few hundred remain. They raise goats and mutton.
They spend their entire year under a tent. They roam the plains from November to May.
Once warmer days arrive, they migrate with their flock towards mid-altitude mountains. This voyage can take anywhere between 1 and 2 months. After having set up camp, they come back down, taking all their belongings with them on camelback (or tractors for those who are more affluent).
The night having arrived, it is 2AM when the Kush Ali family has finally set up camp after a long day of hiking under torrential downpours.
...
Cleanliness, precision and technologies are the very words of the work in an hospital. Michel Vanden Eeckhoudt seems to follow those rules to the letter. The photographer also know how to catch the relaxing moments of the teams of doctors. But very quickly, the importance of what's at stake is coming over: blood is dripping in tubes, but also in patients' veins.
Photographer Michel Vanden Eeckoudt is watching daily works. The aim is not to explain but to give to see what everybody would see when twisting your head. The instantaneity of the picture does not aim exhaustivity nor examplification. But the picture creates moments of life, sometimes funny, often tender. The photographer seems to have make his own word the phrase " work well, amuse well"
White Creole. White, they are 3 000 in Martinique (over 350 000 inhabitants, including 100 000 unemployed people). Arrived at the 17th century, former masters of slaves and plantations, they still own nowadays 80 % of the land and control most of the economy and of the trade business. They do have a sharp sense for caste and secret : "Great honours are great burdens".
Withdraws into itself for a long time, Japan open to trade and world influences only in the twentieth century. From its story, the country keeps a very strong relationship with its own culture. Entrancing, it can be also disconcerting, indeed incomprehensible for an uninitiated. Michel Vanden Eeckhoudt went in Japan, without any a priori, to discover a world. He photographs Japan in its modernity, and hunt down traditions’ breaches.
Monkey or dog, animals strange or familiar, Michel Vanden Eeckhoudt does not differentiate. He fixes a moment of meeting between two beings, so close, so different. Beyond the bizarre, beyond the comical nature that underscores without caricaturizing, here is a respect for the other, a tenderness, a humility in his photographs that charges them with emotion. His resulting compositions are arranged with a steady eye while managing to transform real life moments into often mysterious images without reverting to the anecdotal. Text by: Jean-Christophe Bailly Publisher: Delpire (2013) 112 pages Size: 28 x 20 cm ISBN :2851072676
Michel Vanden Eeckhoudt (Photo Poche)
Si l'on s'en tenait à leur seul sens de l'humour, à leur amour des chiens et à leur virtuosité technique, on pourrait se demander si Michel Vanden Eeckhoudt n'est pas à la photographie européenne ce qu'Elliot Erwitt est à la photographie américaine. Mais il y a plus... Publisher: Actes Sud (2007) 144 pages Size: 13x19 cm ISBN :2742766669
L'enfermement
Collectif : photographies de Jane Evelyn Atwood, Jean-Marc Bodson, Gaël Turine, Michel Vanden Eeckhoudt, Hugues de Wurstemberger
La prison est un lieu où la société enferme non seulement des personnes, mais aussi ses peurs, comme si la sécurité générale pouvait être appréciée à l’indice du nombre des détenus. Outre les commentaires de certains détenus, les photos de ce livre sont loin d’être muettes : elles interrogent non seulement sur les conditions de l’enfermement, mais aussi sur sa raison d’être. La prison peut-elle rester cet endroit clos où l’on parque à l’aveugle ceux qui ont commis, ou en sont seulement soupçonnés, des faits attentatoires à la sécurité publique, aussitôt enfermés, aussitôt oubliés ? Text by: Alain Wiame, Delphine Paci, Dan Kaminski et Philippe Mary Publisher: Husson (2006) 142 pages ISBN :978-2916249094
Justice en France
Ce livre est une adaptation des " Carnets de justice ", une des plus célèbres chroniques de Libération, créée en 1998 par Dominique Simonnot. Text by: Dominique Simonnot Publisher: Editions de la Martiniere (2003) 396 pages ISBN :2846750734
Traces de sucre
Michel Vanden Eeckhoudt est un photographe passionné par les petites choses de la vie; il s'intéresse à une main et un couteau qui décollètent une betterave, comme à une pile de vieux sacs qui traînent, ou à une malheureuse betterave prisonnière de fils barbelés. Il va même jusqu'à les photographier. Text by: Patricia Dewames-Halkin Publisher: Quo vadis (2001) 85 pages Size: 21x26 cm ISBN :90-5349-373-5
Les fours à chaux de Chercq
Il y a le regard d'un photographe, Michel Vanden Eeckhoudt, sur un site industriel en friche qui participe autant de brutalité de l'architecture miliaire moyenâgeuse que du charme désuet de certains jardins anglais où l'opposition entre le clair et l'obscur évoque la nostalgie des paradis perdus.
Michel Husson Text by: Patricia Dewames-Halkin Publisher: Quo vadis (2001) ISBN :90-5349-379-4
Duo
Singe ou chien, animal étrange ou familier, Michel Vanden Eeckhoudt ne décrit pas. Il fixe l’instant d’une rencontre entre deux êtres si proches, si différents. Au-delà de l’insolite, d’une cocasserie qu’il souligne sans caricaturer, il y a un respect de l’autre, une tendresse, une humilité dans ses photographies qui les chargent d’une rare émotion. Text by: Danièle Sallenave Publisher: Nathan/Delpire (2000) 120 pages ISBN :209-754193-3
Les travaux et les jours
Manuel Vázquez Montalbán règle leur compte au jargon et aux prétentions de certains praticiens des sciences humaines. Dans le viseur de Michel Vanden Eeckhoudt, les travailleurs existent bel et bien. C'est avec un humour constant que les deux approches dialogues pour installer une vision amusée mais sérieuse du monde du travail, entre tendresse et grand éclat de rire. Text by: Manuel Vazquez Montalban Publisher: Actes sud (1999) 128 pages Size: 15x21 cm ISBN :2742707085
Chiens
Concours de beauté, écoles vétérinaires, dressages: durant dix ans, Michel Vanden Eeckhoudt a "épinglé" le chien dans tous ses états. De la Suisse au Népal, de l'Ecosse à l'Ile Maurice, ses images tour à tour sensibles et désopilantes sont accompagnées d'une série d'interviews où, dans un style direct, maître-chien, vétérinaire, aveugle, éleveur et artiste de cirque parlent de leur relation profonde avec les chiens. Publisher: Marval (1997) 120 pages ISBN :2-86234-234-3
Sur la ligne
Autour de la ligne de la frontière, s'est aussi forgé, au fil du temps, un espace particulier marqué par la circulation des hommes et les projections mentales. La préoccupation de Michel Vanden Eeckhoudt pour ce type de lieu troublants et révélateurs à incité le Centre Régional de la Photographie à le solliciter. Text by: Gérard Dupuy Publisher: Centre régional de la photographie (1994) ISBN :2-904-538-43-7
Concours Belges
Chaque image montre une scène de concours belge, du concours de coiffure à l'exposition canine. (1985) 64 pages Size: 15,8x21,6 cm
Zoologies
L'oeil précis, froid et cruel de Michel Van Eeckhoudt nous oblige à voir ce que les badauds du zoo oublient peut-être d'apercevoir: que les bêtes dans leur enclos constituent la grande exposition permanente de la tristesse.
Claude Roy Text by: Claude Roy Publisher: Robert Delpire (1982) ISBN :2-85107-104-1
Chroniques immigrées
En 1976, Christian Carez et Michel Vanden Eeckhoudt entreprennent un reportage sur l'immigration en Belgique, qui deviendra après deux ans de travail, "Chroniques immigrées". Text by: François Rigaux Publisher: Vie ouvrière (1978) 184 pages
Cambrésis textile
Any attempt to ally Art and Industry would seem like a formidable challenge. This book is living to testimony to the fact that art can be translated into industrial expertise, particularly in the clothing materials sector.
Jack Lang Text by: Christian Caujolle, Jacques Duquesne et Jack Lang Publisher: Premier janvier 48 pages
‘The world revealed to us by Michel Vanden Eeckhoudt is not cheerful. Although he doesn’t travel around the planet to testify to the pains of the world, and he doesn’t indulge a fascination for war, drama and blood, we can clearly see that he has made no deals with the world of privilege.
He speaks to us of ourselves. Of our children, our days, our solitude, our outbursts of elation, our fatigue, of death that lurks, the curious way in which the Earth turns, the light that strangely cuts out our silhouettes on the world’s absurdity. Interior/exterior landscape, we no longer know, but the...
In between poetry and photojournalism, faithful to his unclassifiable style, Michel Vanden Eeckhoudt offers a discreet yet subtle exposure of our time. His pictures, mostly black and white, are like whispered tales opening on the unknown and on a fantasy world. With animals, particularly dogs, as the main characters of his work, he shares with the viewer unusual and at times ridiculous situations, which can only provoke smiles and laughters.\rMarie van Eupen and Alain D’Hoogue have chosen for this exhibition a selection of 20 images printed in large format, and 6 others smaller. They were all...
Michel Vanden Eeckhoudt participates in a group exhibition, "Fables", in collaboration with six other photographers.\r\rThe fables and fairy tales are attempts to get in tune with other worlds. The children intuitively sense since they are used to hide in corners, behind furniture. There they discovered the cracks through which these different worlds are interconnected.\r\rThese are photographs of the dogs that inspired Sammallahti this text by John Berger (from the preface of the book "Russian way").\r
The "gaps" in question are those between human and animal worlds. Photography can be one...
At first glance, and if we look at them one by one, Michel vanden Eeckhoudt’s photographs cause surprise or even incredulity, and cannot fail to raise a smile or even a great roar of laughter. It has to be said that seeing unusual formal correspondences, totally unexpected meetings between familiar elements or figures, but which appear to have left our ordinary world behind for a joyous everyday surrealism in the frames which have been cut with a scalpel and in pure compositions without ostentation, we can hardly help wondering about the relevance of our perception of the world. And we can...
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