Raymond Depardon La Vita Moderna

The exhibition La Vita Moderna shows the richness of Raymond Depardon's work, the diversity of his subjects, and the coherence of his journey, through eight photographic series, two films, and all the books he has published. Borrowing its title from the film that concluded the Profils paysans trilogy in 2008, the exhibition leads the visitor through a succession of questions that run through the artist's entire body of work: Which subjects call for colour and which call for black and white? How can the transformations of a landscape be evoked in an image? Where should the photographer stand and what is the ideal distance from the subject? How can we detach ourselves from the event to reveal the margins and borders? What is modernity in photography when you walk through a rural area or cross the streets of a post-industrial city?

Here the dualism – between black and white and colour, between faces and landscapes, between ancestral land and modernity – does not lead to antagonism, but reveals an attention to the world, a curiosity in motion, an open approach to the diversity of our age.

La Vita Moderna has been specially created for the Triennale Milano with the participation of the artist Jean-Michel Alberola and set against a scenographic backdrop designed by Théa Alberola.