Exhibitions 25 January to 10 May 2020 Wallonia-Brussels Federation

RENÉ MAGRITTE
The revealed images

The discovery of René Magritte's photographs in the 1970s, ten years after the painter's death, shed new light on his creative process and the close links he has with the "mechanical image", whether it be photographic or cinematographic.
Other images have since appeared, from the albums of his relatives, which complete the study of painting-photography relations in the work of René Magritte, but also the influence of cinema, an art of which Magritte was, as much as of popular literature, most fond of it.
Composed of 131 original photographs, most created by René Magritte, and a chapter featuring his amateur films staged with his accomplices, the exhibition.
"The Revealed Images" questions Magritte's relationship to the mechanical image by drawing links with his work, revealing moreover
an intimate Magritte.Designed from three large private collections, consisting of enthusiasts who have acquired photos over the years, the collection of the Museum of Photography and Fund J. Nonkels filed, the exhibition tells the painter as much as the user of photography.
We find Magritte's family album with his childhood photos, his parents, his wife.
Then we see the intellectual family of the painter, the one who fed him, the group of Brussels surrealists who from 1925 accompanied the development of his work.
The exhibition also presents a facetious Rene Magritte, playing and having fun with his accomplices.
Finally, there are the photos that served as models for his paintings and those he has never used - Magritte does not consider himself more a photographer than he wanted to be "painter" - perhaps the most creative ...
The exhibition also unveils the influence of cinema on the artist, the surrealists having grown up with the Seventh Art.
After Melbourne, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Seoul, the Museum of Photography is pleased to welcome, in Belgium, the exhibition René Magritte, The Revealed Images, curated by Xavier Canonne.
The exhibition is accompanied by the book "René Magritte".
"The revealed images" written by Xavier Canonne, published in 2017 by Editions Ludion in English and Chinese, which will be published for the occasion in French.

1. The merchant of oblivion, 1936 © 2019-2020, Charly Herscovici c / o SABAM
2. Jacqueline Nonkels (photographer), René Magritte painting Clairvoyance, Brussels, October 4, 1936
© 2019-2020, Charly Herscovici c / o SABAM
3. The Bouquet, 1937, Brussels, Rue Esseghem, Georgette and René Magritte © 2019-2020, Charly Herscovici c / o SABAM
4. Shadow and its shadow, Brussels, 1932 Georgette and René Magritte © 2019-2020, Charly Herscovici c / o SABAM

LAURENCE BIBOT
Madame Studio

Change appearance, period, genre, look in the mirror, before happening in front of friends, the family circle, reproducing the tics of each, the stars of the screen.
Children love to dress up, stealing in cabinets and attics costumes, hats and other accessories.
Growing up, some have kept this part of the game, this taste of disguise, the makeup, it even happens that they make profession. Thus Laurence Bibot that we have known in Miss Bricola with The Snuls, then in his shows as Bravo Martine where the clichés
were intertwined, the intonation, the tone of voice unmasking the stereotypes, feminine this time.
This gallery of portraits will continue in other shows, Miss B or Sisters Emmanuelle, between derision and tribute, which translate a devastating humor and a faculty of acute observation, before Transvestites, a documentary that she realizes on the universe of transformists.
In recent years, starting from television archives, Laurence Bibot has made a series of small capsules seizing female archetypes, shampooer, school director, nymphet, housewife over 50, depressed woman or exalted, but also known characters, Barbara, Juliette Gréco, Sister Smile or more recently Amélie Nothomb whose making of the top hat will have needed treasures of imagination.
It is not a question here of imitations but of backing tracks, Laurence Bibot reproducing the movement of the lips of the interviewees whose costume and the elements of the decoration she has adopted.
Delivered so far to social networks, these capsules will be presented for the first time at the Museum of Photography, which hosted from May to September 2017 the exhibition in light deferred devoted to Belgian television, organized by Sonuma partner this time again , Studio Madame is a humorous extension, a way to recycle the television image.
Wigs, scarves, anachronistic glasses, on flower blouses or tailors Chanel, will be at the rendezvous of these parodies where it will sometimes be difficult to recognize the actress.
To our great pleasure and without doubt yours, here is Laurence Bibot, as such in themselves.
If cinema has emancipated by adding sound to the image, Laurence Bibot has fun doing the opposite.
In her series of videos, which infinitely multiplies her image while deforming it, she embodies voices and realizes one of her fantasies - to be the woman with a thousand faces.
With the exception of the few public figures she has represented in her gallery (Gina Lollobrigida, Marguerite Duras, Amelie Nothomb ...), we do not know what those who speak her look like.
The effect is surprising and touching, to the point of considering the exercise as a tribute to the anonymous who, with their own body, participate in this immense showcase of characters.
By adding an imaginary face to a real sound, Laurence Bibot proceeds by augmented reality and unfolds an unsuspected landscape where it is believed that there is only one voice.
Sebastien Ministru
Excerpt from the book accompanying the exhibition.
Marguerite in media jargon, we call her "Madame Michu".
In other words, Madam everyone, the voice of the street.
It is the incarnation of the statistics: rather than making the figures speak, we give the floor to "the little lady", the passer-by. {...}
Television has been using Madame Michu since her invention. {...}
It is in its vintage frusks that Laurence Bibot slides, composing a mosaic that draws how we used to portray (and always?) Women through the small screen.
Of course, Laurence drew from the Sonuma's archives some larger-than-life characters, some women
Fetishes almost freaks. {...}
Beside these Amélie Nothomb, Barbara or Juliette Greco (...) who look at the camera with aplomb, there is also and especially these anonymous archetypal that exhale the flavor of a time where the staging of oneself and the expression of his opinion were not self-evident.
At a time when, on television, {...} it was the man who was the bearer of the eye and ensured a relay imbibed of ordinary sexism to the public. {...}
This landscape could be depressing if Laurence Bibot did not highlight here the expression of these women in what they have most spontaneous, touching, funny ... in other words, what they have of more Belgian. {...}
Here an accent, here a garment, a hairstyle, an attitude ... in this country that does nothing like the others, these women, shot to the height of "average Belgian", metabolize and catalyze the taste of an era and of 'a territory.
And we can only love them.
Myriam Leroy
Excerpt from the book accompanying the exhibition.

1. The Marquise de Wavrin, seer, on the program "Descent into the Occult Brussels", 1976 - Laurence Bibot 2018
2. Monks and Men, 1981 - Laurence Bibot 2018
3. Amélie Nothomb interviewed by Hadja Labib at the RTBF RT on the occasion of the Book Fair in 2000 - Laurence Bibot 2019
© Laurence Bibot / Sonuma
4. Sophia Loren interviewed by René Michelems as part of the release of the film "A special day" in 1977
- Laurence Bibot 2017 © Laurence Bibot / Sonuma

DIANA MATAR
My America

At the end of 2015, photographer Diana Matar began to search the US for places where police killed civilians.
She draws detailed maps in her studio and compiles information on each fatal case of police violence that occurred in the previous two years.
Diana Matar spent two years traveling the road and photographing most of the 2,200 sites where these murders took place.
"I work in a certain history of photography that goes back to the places where things have happened, - a genre that usually focuses on facts of war or injustices - I use it however to record the constant phenomenon of police violence that contaminates America. "
Working in this genre of landscape and documentary photography, My America is a peaceful but cold criticism of contemporary America.
By photographing more than 300 locations where police officers have killed American citizens, Diana Matar has instituted a
A photographic language that is as timely as it is critical of police brutality, his photographs constantly emphasize the decline of the country's social structure.
Although her photographs are of a rather classical style, she only uses an iPhone.
So she explains: "We would know nothing about police killings without smartphones.
People started using them to document injustices and share them on the web.
I thought it was important to use the same technology in making these still images. "
This is not the first time that Matar has made an important series relating to places of violence.
In her previous work, Evidence 2014, which was presented at Tate Modern, at the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago at the Arab World Institute, and in six other international institutions, Diana Matar devoted a few years to focusing on landscapes and the buildings of extra-judicial confinement, kidnappings and murders led by the Gaddafi regime in Libya.
In response to his father-in-law's disappearance in these circumstances, Matar documented the spaces where these violations were perpetrated against an entire nation.
Diana Matar's work in America is deeply imbued with this research that highlights the structural issues that influence the large number of murders by the police.
It focuses on the history of racial injustice, lack of education and preparedness, and one of the lowest levels of police per capita in the world.
But Diana Matar intends to deliver much more than statistics: "For me, every image of My America represents not only an act of violence but also the loss of an individual - an individual with family.
That's why I'm not afraid to use a certain beauty in these descriptions, a concept that tends to controversy in the representation of violence. "
For the Museum of Photography in Charleroi, Diana Matar made a selection of 99 photographs on a set of 300 images. The scale of the project reflects that of the problem, but requires that we remember each person who has been killed.
The title of each photograph includes only the name, dates of birth and death, and the city where the person was
killed.
The places that Matar photograph correspond to the addresses she obtained through the police reports.
She specifies, however, that her images are not crime scenes.
The level of death from police violence in America is unique among developed countries.
Matar questions the reasons that led America to this point, each photograph representing a death at a specific moment.

1. Oscar Romero Whittier, California 1968-2015
2. Eddie Tapia Downey, California 1974-2015
3. Joseph Weber Sunnyvale, California 1987-2015
4. Allen Baker III Sunnyvale, California 1992-2015

Center for Contemporary Art of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation 11, av. Paul Pastur
GPS: Place des Essarts
B-6032 Charleroi (Mont-sur-Marchienne) T +32 (0) 71 43.58.10 F +32 (0) 71 36.46.45
mpc.info@museephoto.be
The museum is open from Tuesday to Sunday, from 10h to 18h. Closed at 4 pm on December 24th and 31st, 2019.
Closed on December 25, 2019 and January 1, 2020.