Tribute to photographer Olivier Dassault during Paris Photo 2023
 

Artcurial and Natacha Dassault will be honouring photographer Olivier Dassault at Paris Photo 2023. From 9th to 11th November, an exclusive exhibition entitled “Abstract Expressions” will present 40 analogue photographies by Olivier Dassault at Artcurial. This tribute will cover his photographic career, and in particular its last 15 years featuring photos taken during his lifetime on original mediums, including a selection of unpublished works.

This exhibition is structured around 3 themes: “Colour - source of creation”, as seen in Circulation d'art, a detail of the Beaubourg structure in 2016; "Overprinting - composition in the shot" through Discovery, a pavement corner photographed in the United States in 2014; and “Light - his credo”, illustrated in particular by Enigme, a kaleidoscope of light beams produced in Morocco in 2015.

His pilot's eye has led him to perceive and compose images shaped throughout his life. His perception of the world, between verticality and horizontality, makes his work so singular.

Photography was a revelation for Olivier Dassault from the time he was a teenager. Faithful to his Minolta XD7, this multi-faceted man has devoted part of his life to capturing the moment on silver film. From beginners' competitions to trips around the world, he has used everything to train his eye, perfect his technique and conceptualise his approach. Over more than 40 years, his work has gone from instant abstractions to improvised compositions using multiple exposures and overprints. He gradually freed himself from the constraints of realism and explored colour and form as sources of creation.

A keen traveller, he loves to soak up the indescribable energy of the places and objects he tames, and creates unique and captivating visual compositions exclusively in film. By observing his surroundings, Olivier Dassault gets closer to the origin of the elements. He photographs everywhere, wherever he happens to be. He creates the link, his freedom of photographic language, that of composing and redrawing with an infinite state of awareness. The process of revealing the image and its format depend on the emotion it arouses, to deliver all its light and depth.

His photographs have been exhibited all over the world, from Paris to New York, Madrid to Marrakech, and are included in the catalogues of many museums and institutions, from the Bibliothèque Nationale de France to the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, from the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas, to the Palm Springs Art Museum in California. In 2023, his work will join the collections of the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Although Olivier Dassault was also a member of the French National Assembly and held senior positions within the Dassault Group, it is his artistic career that distinguishes him. His approach will remain a quest of obsessive reflection, towards the ultimate and unprecedented cliché. His “iconic confessions” attest to his mischievous spirit, his sensitivity and the virtuosity of his gestures.

Each of his works witnesses a fragment of life, in which the light blends with the material, inviting us to appreciate and preserve the beauty of the world. The fleeting image is frozen in immobile eternity.

Information
Exhibition
From Thursday 9th to Saturday 11th November 2023

7 Rond-Point des Champs-Elysées Marcel Dassault  
75008 Paris

Contact  
nodart.photo@gmail.com