PHOTO:Sabine Weiss-Les Villes,La Rue,L’autre

Sabine Weiss’ black-and-white photos in the exhibition “Les Villes, La Rue, L’autre”  at Center George Pompidou, does not seem to have any difference and no surprise to the viewer, as it is like all the other photo exhibitions we have met. Born in Switzerland in 1924, Sabine Weiss very early interested herself in photography and decided to take it up as her profession. She was apprenticed during the World War II, at the Studio Boissonnas, in Geneva, and at its end she decided to move to Paris, she was featured in MoMA’s exhibitions “Post-War European Photography” (26/5-23/8/53) and “The Family of Man” (24/1-8/5/55). The exhibition at Centre Pompidou covers the post-war years between 1945 and 1960, Sabine Weiss photographs children playing on waste ground in her neighbourhood, but also the city of Paris and its everyday life, the Métro, the flea-markets… The important thing in this exhibition is the light and the way Weiss manages to highlight the bright sides of a sad and difficult period of history after World War II, where the world is driven to growth without being completed . These exhibitions have an importance for purely historical and perhaps sociological reasons, but from the visual point of view few can offer the viewer. Altough Sabine Weiss’ photographs are set in dialogue with the work of four contemporary artists: Viktoria Binschtok, Paul Graham, Lise Sarfati and Paola Yacoub, all working on the theme of today’s city, the contemporary street, “Les Villes, La Rue, L’autre” is not one of the exhibitions that change the viewer’s sentiment in terms of photography, it remains in the sphere of the visual documentary.-Efi Michalarou

Info: Curator: Karolina Ziebinska-Lewandowska, Centre Georges-Pompidou, Place Georges-Pompidou, Paris, Duration: 20/6-15/10/18, Days & Hours: Daily 11:00-22:00, www.centrepompidou.fr