elles@centrepompidou
Works by female artist from the collections of the Centre Pompidou, Paris
27 May 2009 - 21 February 2011

An image maker without projection

The exhibition 'elles@centrepompidou' shows the museum's own collections with focus on the works from the 20th century until today by female artists from different disciplines like Frida Kahlo (painting), Louise Bourgeois (sculpture, installations) or photographer Lisette Model.

In Vienna born (1901) Lisette Model lived in France, since the late 1930s in US, where she even died (New York 1983). She is one of the pioneers of female art. One of her most famous photo stories is about people at the promenade in Nice (France).

Lisette Model looks from the angle of a documentary photographer who takes the picture from a distance without getting as picture taker in closer contact with the 'model'. She has given the one before the lens the widest space to be her/himself as she hasn't projected her image of someone else onto the person she portrayed.

Lisette Model once said: "The camera is an instrument of detection. We photograph not only what we know, but also what we don't know." cybermuse.gallery.ca

Until the 1950s, Lisette Model has worked for magazines like Harper's Bazaar on 'street'-photo series such as the '42th Street Flea Circus', which shows the circus and its people without romantic cliché. Later, Lisette Model has taught students like Diane Arbus at the New School for Social Research in New York.

Video: On occasion of 'Lisette Model' from 9 Feb - 6 June 2010 at the exhibition space of 'Jeu de Paume' in Paris, curator Christina Zelich speaks about the photographer's live and work; included into the video are original statements by Lisette Model spoken by herself.