Pierre Bourdieu: Exhibition venues
Infos
The exhibition “Pierre Bourdieu: In Algeria. Testimonies of Uprooting.” was curated by Christine Frisinghelli, Camera Austria and Franz Schultheis, Fondation Bourdieu.
Preceeding the exhibition in Graz
15.11.2003 – 6.2.2004
there has been a project held in Paris:
“Pierre Bourdieu. Images d’Algérie. Une affinité élective”
23. 1. – 2. 3. 2003 , Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris.
The exhibition has been shown at 30 different locations.
The project was realised with the financial support of Graz 2003 – Cultural Capital of Europe and was a contribution to its program.
Intro
The exchange between Camera Austria, Fondation Bourdieu and the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu between 2000 and 2002 led to a comprehensive project: he entrusted his entire archive of photographs taken during his fieldwork in Algeria between the years of 1958 and 1961, and representing, as he noted, his earliest and at the same time his most topical work, to Camera Austria with the intention of exhibiting and publishing these photographs for the first time. In collaboration with Bourdieu who unfortunately died in 2002, and Franz Schultheis, Fondation Bourdieu, the photographic documents were looked through, structured and related to the ethnographic and sociological studies Bourdieu carried out in Algeria during the same period.
Representing mainly ethnographic primary material, these photographs must be viewed and interpreted in relation to the specific scientific interest underlying the choice of subject, the angle of view, the inclusion of context and the resulting construction of the object to be captured, if one does not want to indulge in an ahistoric aesthetic purism and to ignore the social meaning and political significance of these images. They are “framed” by their very conditions of production, operating in a specific socio-historical context which they aim to document or, in Bourdieu‘s term, “objectify” in a particular way.
All of Bourdieu‘s fundamental themes of sociology are already present even at this early stage: he addresses the subliminal rules of exchange, the social embedding of economy, the relation of temporal structures to rationality, the symbolic orders of society, as well as the hierarchies between the sexes, generations and social classes. His photographs serve as a catalyst for carving out the different thematic complexes found in Bourdieu‘s theoretic works.
Read more →Pierre Bourdieu: Exhibition venues
The exchange between Camera Austria, Fondation Bourdieu and the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu between 2000 and 2002 led to a comprehensive project: he entrusted his entire archive of photographs taken during his fieldwork in Algeria between the years of 1958 and 1961, and representing, as he noted, his earliest and at the same time his most topical work, to Camera Austria with the intention of exhibiting and publishing these photographs for the first time. In collaboration with Bourdieu who unfortunately died in 2002, and Franz Schultheis, Fondation Bourdieu, the photographic documents were looked through, structured and related to the ethnographic and sociological studies Bourdieu carried out in Algeria during the same period.
Representing mainly ethnographic primary material, these photographs must be viewed and interpreted in relation to the specific scientific interest underlying the choice of subject, the angle of view, the inclusion of context and the resulting construction of the object to be captured, if one does not want to indulge in an ahistoric aesthetic purism and to ignore the social meaning and political significance of these images. They are “framed” by their very conditions of production, operating in a specific socio-historical context which they aim to document or, in Bourdieu‘s term, “objectify” in a particular way.
All of Bourdieu‘s fundamental themes of sociology are already present even at this early stage: he addresses the subliminal rules of exchange, the social embedding of economy, the relation of temporal structures to rationality, the symbolic orders of society, as well as the hierarchies between the sexes, generations and social classes. His photographs serve as a catalyst for carving out the different thematic complexes found in Bourdieu‘s theoretic works.
His groundbreaking fieldwork, now supplemented for the first time by his photographs, provides insight into the nascent state of his sociology. Apart from this dimension of shedding light on the evolution of Bourdieu‘s work, his images also comprise an impressive socio-historical document. They testify to a society full of uneven developments where people still have not overcome their homeless and uprooted situation their alienation from both tradition and modernity. Maybe it is Algeria‘s tragedy that even after four decades these images have still lost none of their topicality and realism.
“With the same understanding view of the ethnologist with which I regarded Algeria, I could also view myself, the people from my home, my parents, my father’s and my mother’s pronunciation, all re-appropriating it in a totally undramatic manner. This is one of the greatest problems of uprooted intellectuals when all that remains to them is the choice between populism and, on the contrary, shame induced by class racism. I encountered these people, who are very much akin to the Kabyles and with whom I spent my youth, from a perspective of understanding that is mandatory for ethnology, defining it as a discipline. Photography, which I practised first in Algeria and then in Béarn, undoubtedly contributed a great deal to this conversion of my perspective – and I don’t think this word ‘conversion’ is too strong. Photography, you see, is a manifestation of the distance of the observer, who collects his data – and is always aware that he is collecting data – but at the same time photography also assumes the complete proximity of the familiar, of attention, and a sensitivity with regard to even the least perceptible of details. Details that the observer can only understand and interpret thanks to his familiarity (and do we not say that someone who behaves well, is ‘attentive’?) and a sensitivity for the infinitely small detail of an act that even the most attentive of ethnologists generally fails to notice. But photography itself is equally interwoven with the relationship that I have had to my subject at any particular time and not for a moment did I forget that my subject is people – human beings whom I have encountered from a perspective that, at the risk of sounding ridiculous, I would willingly refer to as caring, often touched.”
Extract of an interview with Pierre Bourdieu from: In Algerien. Zeugnisse der Entwurzelung. (Engl.: Picturing Algeria, 2012, page 1)
Jeu de Paume / Château de Tours, Tours, (FR)
ENS / Lettres et sciences humaines, Lyon, (FR)
Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, (DE)
Centre Culturel Français, Algier, (DZ)
Shedhalle, Rote Fabrik, Zürich, (CH)
Centre de la Photographie, Genf, (CH)
Daelim Contemporary Art Museum, Seoul, (KR)
other venues
MACBA, Barcelona, 2008, Projection
Pierre Bourdieu: In Algeria. Testimonies of Uprooting.
This compilation is an excerpt from the exhibition and book:
“Pierre Bourdieu. In Algeria. Testimonies of Uprooting.”
Camera Austria, Graz 2003.
Produced by Camera Austria, Graz and Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, 2008.
© Fondation Bourdieu. Courtesy: Camera Austria, Graz
Interview with the trustees
Interview with the curators Christine Frisinghelli & Franz Schultheis,
Château de Tours.
© Jeu de Paume, 2012.
Materials
- Franz Schultheis: Pierre Bourdieu and Algeria. An elective affinity.
- An interview with Pierre Bourdieu by Franz Schultheis
- Christine Frisinghelli: Comments on the Photographic Documentations of Pierre Bourdieu.
- An Interview by Cathren Müller, Text feature in Camera Austria International 73/2001, pp. 4–8.
- Franz Schultheis, Pierre Bourdieu: Objectification as a profession, Text feature in Camera Austria International 76/2001, pp. 3–7.
- Exhibition venues
- Franz Schultheis: Pierre Bourdieu et l'Algérie. De l'affinité élective à l'objectivation engagée.
- Entretien entre Pierre Bourdieu et Franz Schultheis: Photographies d'Algérie
- Christine Frisinghelli: Observations concernant les documentations photographiques de Pierre Bourdieu
Contact
Custodian
Christine Frisinghelli
frisinghelli@camera-austria.at
Exhibition Management
Angelika Maierhofer T. +43 / (0) 316 / 81 55 50 16
exhibitions@camera-austria.at
© Fondation Pierre Bourdieu / Camera Austria, Graz.