Dreaming of Zerzura

("Oléron1" by Fred Jagueneau)

For many years at the beginning of his career, Fred Jagueneau was a photographer's assistant to several huge names in fashion photography, including Mario Testino and Annie Leibovitz. In 1994, however, he set off to travel the world alone, to capture the lives and landscapes of the planet's "most remote places and peoples." A marvelous exhibit of some of those photographs is on display now at Galerie Nikki Diana Marquardt.

Jagueneau used primarily Polaroid to capture his subjects, then send the Polaroids as postcards to his friends and family.

The exhibit, occupying an immensely quiet and sunny space tucked into a courtyard in the Marais, features black and white photos of horizons and personal profiles from Colombia, Indonesia, Morocco, Egypt, Jordan... one gets the feeling of having traveled the world just peering into their depths.

Pyramidic mountains are juxtaposed against reaching glacial towers, while families playing beside a pool in France are placed beside Mexican families at the beach. There's a solitude to the photographs, a kind of distance, while somehow evoking the sense that the world is small indeed, and the human experience shared.

"Dreaming of Zerzura"

FREE
Now through Tuesday, May 15th
Galerie Nikki Diana Marquardt
9 Place Vosges (4e Arr.)
Métro: M1 to St. Paul or M8 to Chemin Vert