Streets

This exhibit embodies one of the first points in our manifesto. ”Streets” is the assertion of love for the spontaneity of street photography, which photographers owe a lot to. At the end of the XIXth century, Nadar worked hand-in-hand with “outdoor” painters, caricaturists, poets and the first photographers. Thanks to the jack of all trades Nadar and other pioneers, generations of photographers have been able to travel the world with only a camera strapped around their necks, “seeing” the world differently. Going out, walking, encountering strangers and capturing the moment. We “saw” Charles Petit and stopped. The “Streets” photographs were selected amongst hundreds taken in Los Angeles, Paris and eastern Europe, from the 70s to today. Charles Petit composes his scenes along his wanderings, guided by an instinct for their settings. A fan of cities, he instils the fiction of dramaturgy into the ordinariness of daily life. Each image contains the beginning of a story and a part of mystery left to our imagination. His black and whites, taken on the quick, may evoke John Cassavetes films. His color photos are engraved in a moment we wished eternal.