Vues Urbaines

FROM SAINT-ÉTIENNE TO CHICAGO, FROM 1930 TO TODAY

Explore the diverse collection of photographs from the MAMC+ and from the IAC/Frac Rhône-Alpes, through a new hanging in relation to Valérie Jouve’s exhibition Forms of Lives. Urban Views offers a look at the city and its inhabitants, beyond periods and locations, from London to Canton, via Saint-Étienne and its region.

The exhibition showcases the anthropological and political point of view of artist-photographers by way of the urban landscape. In late 1930, photographer Helen Levitt directs her gaze towards the life of the streets of Harlem and the Lower East Side, two poor neighbourhoods in Manhattan. In Great Britain, between 1949 and 1953, Nigel Henderson focuses on the specificities of the popular milieus of East London.

In Guangdong, the coastal province of Southeast China, the photographs of Laurent Gueneau show us the complexity and diversity of town planning in the twenty-first century. New urban constructions such as skyscrapers or major communication routes seem to at once clash and coexist with dense nature and a traditional, ancient Chinese village.

Other artists focused on urban views of the Saint-Étienne Basin, such as Günther Förg, Louis Caterin, or Ito Josué, capturing the buildings and the construction of housing complexes.

ARTISTS PRESENTED

Louis Caterin, Erik Dietman, Günther Förg, Jochen Gerz, Laurent Gueneau, Nigel Henderson, Ito Josué, Valérie Jouve, Helen Levitt, Rajak Ohanian, Wolf Vostell