Marc Riboud Retrospective in Changsha

From his first pictures in 1953 in Paris, then in London, in Yugoslavia, on the road to Beyrouth and India, in the old Land Rover he travels the whole Middle-East in, to China, when he obtains his hard-fought-for first visa in 1957, the exhibition follows Marc Riboud’s life.

A travel through various places, the exhibition is also an exploration of the second half of the 20th century. Marc Riboud has always been sensitive to the tragedies of his time, and to the fate of his contemporaries. In the 1960s, he photographs African independences, as in Algeria in 1962, then the long agony in Vietnam, along with the rebellion of American students.

In every country, in every era, Marc Riboud’s eye is always unique. A respectful and discreet eye that stays at a distance to compose a photograph using the rules of painting. An eye that looks for the beauty of shapes, the grace of gestures, and sometimes how amusing a situation can be.

His love of beauty flourishes everywhere, and more specifically in Angkor and, towards the end of his life, in the Huangshan mountains, where Marc Riboud goes back six times.

Exhibition visitors will easily see the key place China had in the photographer’s life. A place nourished by an intellectual, aesthetic and affective passion that, after his first two trips in 1957 and 1965, will bring him back to China 22 times between 1971 and 2010.

During all these “long marches“, a quiet and deep bond develops between the photographer and the ones he observed, and when Marc Riboud exhibits in Beijing at the Meishuguan for the first time in 1996, thousands of Chinese come to visit. The dense crowd made it almost impossible to enter on the very first day. The visitors recognize their parents’ and grandparents’ China, urban and rural areas from the past forty years, after only seeing the “official“ China in propaganda pictures.

This silent exchange with the Chinese audience brought Marc Riboud joy and he loved to exhibit in China. Here are his own words about this passion:

"The countries I love are like my friends. I like to see them again and understand their development and changes. Therefore, I often return to China. Everything here is developing faster than in other places. Even a careful person can see the eternity of things under this restless appearance."