To mark the centenary of the birth of Sabine Weiss, this exhibition in her honor combines the work of visual artist Nathalie Boutté with her photographs
A major figure in humanist photography, Sabine Weiss explored every aspect of her craft for over sixty years, taking turns as a street, fashion and advertising photographer. The exhibition reveals some of the treasures among the many negatives, prints and contact sheets that make up her archives, preserved by Photo Elysée.
Whereas Sabine Weiss built up her body of work by photographing the street and filling orders in her studio, Nathalie Boutté does not take photos but, instead, meticulously cuts out strips of paper on which she prints a text. She then recomposes the images from which she drew her inspiration by assembling the paper strips, thus recreating the work in volume. The images, consisting of strips that create gradations of gray when text is present–in this case, quotations from Sabine Weiss–are revealed as the viewer gradually moves away from them. By opening its archives to Nathalie Boutté, Photo Elysée reveals a little-known side of Sabine Weiss's career, a major figure in humanist photography established in Paris in 1946.