The sixth version of Carte Blanche PMU, created by Thierry Fontaine, will be on show for the first time in the photography gallery of the Pompidou Centre. The exhibition opens today and will continue until the 19th of October 2015. We met the photographer as he was finishing his latest work in the series titled “Joueurs” (Gamblers). Three months later, the exhibition and the book, designed by Whitepapierstudio and published by Filigranes are seeing the light of day.
The first five winners of the Carte Blanche PMU were shown at Le BAL. It has been given a new dimension with Thierry Fontaine. The photography gallery at the Pompidou Centre was opened almost a year ago and offered the organiser of this exhibition a space of 200 square metres . Clément Chéroux, curator of photography at Beaubourg was there with Emmanuelle Etchecopar-Etchart andFrançoise Vogt, in charge of cultural sponsorship for PMU. Thierry Fontaine is more than a photographer, he is an artist who produces works mixing sculptural creation and photography in which dream is at the heart of his work. Across twenty photographs, the artist questions the dream generated by gambling, he gives space for hope in each with a new kind of poetry. The hope, the waiting, the win and the loss are skilfully evoked at the core of this exhibition; he gives life to what sustains the gamblers and in this way gives a perfect balance to the exhibition.
We asked Benoît Cornu, Director of Communications at PMU about this first exhibition at the Pompidou Centre.
“Being at the Pompidou Centre is a new stage for the Carte Blanche. For five years we worked at Le BAL with Diane Dufour and her team; we couldn’t have existed without them. We had the opportunity to go into the photography gallery of the Pompidou Centre and for us this is a form of recognition. This year, the work of Thierry Fontaine is a new discovery, which is interesting for the Carte Blanche. It’s that each year, a new approach is discovered, a new way of picturing gambling. I’m never disappointed. At the start,Thierry’s approach was very conceptual, he wanted to photograph the dreams of gamblers, and he has played the rôle of an alchemist perfectly by turning something with no value into gold. This artist brings a new way to look .
EXHIBSITION
Les Joueurs
Thierry Fontaine
Carte blanche PMU 2015
From 7 to 19 October 2015
Centre Pompidou
Place Georges-Pompidou
75004 Paris
France
http://centrepompidou.fr
