Olivier Roller

Last updated
Olivier Roller par Claude Truong-Ngoc mars 2015 Olivier Roller par Claude Truong-Ngoc mars 2015.jpg
Olivier Roller par Claude Truong-Ngoc mars 2015

Olivier Roller (born 1972 in Strasbourg) is a French photographer based in Paris. He specializes in photographic portraits, and since 2009 he has been creating photographic frescos. The images are about figures of power and portraits of the "emperors of today", which he confronts and compares to the faces of the past, from antiquity to Napoleon.

Contents

Biography

After studying political science and law studies in Strasbourg, Olivier Roller became a photographer.

He describes power and influence in France in the beginning of the 21st century through the individuals who represent them (ministers, financiers, advertisers, media leaders…)

If the power is immutable, men of power are friable. […] What is photographed is a changing power, pending, maybe disappearing. […] The power is that dream to challenge time, knowing that time will be stronger. […] The men of power knows what he lost

Olivier Roller

The beginnings

Olivier's first portrait was of his grandfather in 1994, in a very tight frame and devoid of artifices. The image urges the viewer to go beyond the clichés of the portrait: to smile, stand straight, be beautiful.

While he was still a student, he found his voice and a new means to communicate through photography. To find faces to photograph, he approached many writers and filmmakers who were promoting their work in bookstores and venues. This promptly lead to the press giving him assignments.

Jeanne Moreau

While on assignment, Oliver followed Jeanne Moreau to a film festival in Belgium. Back in Paris, he contacted her to ask if he could photograph her, but not for any specific reason. He wanted to move away from assignments and instead photograph the subjects more authentically and more realistically. This photograph is now the cover of the book Visage by Bruno Chibane, gathering 20 years of portraits of assignments of Olivier Roller.

Figures of power

In 2008, the Musée du Louvre gave him a carte blanche in the following terms: "Would you like to work on the equivalent of Sarkozy (the French president) and Fillon (Sarkozy's prime minister), 2000 years ago?". He spent every Tuesday (public closure’ day) for six months, all alone in the Gallery of Antiques.

In the following year, he set out to confront the faces of today's "emperors" (financiers, publicists, intellectuals, diplomats, politicians, etc.) with their counterparts of the past (from the Roman emperors to Napoleon). He contacts the men of power and proposes to them that they come to make a portrait in his studio, and to become a face hanging on the wall of an exhibition. This project is still in progress.

The influence of surfing

In the collective book West is the Best, Olivier Roller speaks about his surfing practice, that he compares to photography.

Being in the ocean, in the middle of the waves, allows him to not think but just be present. He describes this practice as "a symbolic vehicle for advancement" and explains that surfing has allowed him "to reach a certain animality" and "reconnect with reality.". Olivier Roller explains that he loves the shifting, unpredictable, and even disappointing side of surfing. The same applies to photography. He compares photography to the ocean: "It has nothing against you, but you will never be able to dominate it, you just have to be humble."

Exhibitions

Publications

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Claude-Max Lochu</span> French artist, painter and designer (born 1951)

Claude-Max Lochu is a French artist, painter and designer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jacques Réattu</span> French painter (1760–1833)

Jacques Réattu was a French painter and winner of the grand prix de Rome. He was an illegitimate son of the painter Guillaume de Barrême de Châteaufort and Catherine Raspal, sister of the Arles-born painter Antoine Raspal – Antoine gave him his first lessons in painting.

Katerina Jebb is a British-born artist, photographer and film-maker.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michel Poivert</span>

Michel Poivert is a professor of the history of contemporary art and photography at the Sorbonne. He has taken a special interest in pictorialism, the subject of his doctorate thesis. From 1995 to 2010, he was president of Société française de photographie, the French Photography Society. In 2018, he founded the International College of Photography (CIP). In 2020, he was awarded Officier des Arts et des Lettres.

Lucien Lorelle was a French portraitist, publicist, humanist photographer, author, painter, a member of Le Groupe des XV and founder of the photography company Central Color.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Olivier Meyer</span> French photographer (born 1957)

Olivier Meyer is a French photographer born in 1957. He lives and works in Paris, France.

Jan Kopp is a German visual artist. He has lived in France since 1991.

Clark and Pougnaud are a French artistic duo, made up of photographer Christophe Clark, born in Paris on 29 October 1963, and painter Virginie Pougnaud, born in Angoulême on 18 November 1962.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vincent Fournier (photographer)</span>

Vincent Fournier is a French artist and photographer. His works explore questions of science fiction, utopian stories ,and different mythologies of the future such as the space adventure, humanoid robots, utopian architectures, and the technological transformation of the living. His vision is nourished by childhood memories, including visits to the Palais de la Découverte, which evoke the "scientific wonder". While photography remains his preferred medium, 3D printing, video and installations sometimes accompany certain projects. Vincent Fournier's images are put in tension by oppositions that disturb our gaze: reality/fiction, logic/absurdity, past/future, magic/science, natural/artificial. He explores futuristic fiction and discovers in our present, or in the past, "glimpse of the future". After graduating in sociology and visual arts, he studied at the École nationale supérieure de la photographie in Arles and obtained his diploma in 1997.

Bernard Lamarche-Vadel was a French writer, poet, art critic and collector.

Kim Timby is a photography historian based in Paris who teaches at the École du Louvre and works as a curator for a private collection specialising in international nineteenth-century photography. From her research and teaching, Timby writes on the cultural history of photography as a technology.

Quentin Bajac is a French museum curator and art historian specialising in the history of photography. He is the director of the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume in Paris.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Didier Ben Loulou</span> Franco-Israeli photographer

Didier Ben Loulou, is a Franco-Israeli photographer.

Léon Herschtritt was a French humanist photographer. He won the Niépce Prize as a young photographer in 1960.

Jean-Claude Lemagny was a French library curator and historian of photography; a specialist in contemporary photography, he contributed to the world of fine-art photography in several roles.

Hom Nguyen is a French painter of Vietnamese origin. His works are mostly portraits in a figurative style. He lives and works in Paris.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Étienne Bertrand Weill</span> E. B.Weill artist creator of abstract photography & kinetic shows

Étienne Bertrand Weill (1919-2001) was a French photographer. His primary works were abstract Metaforms.

Louise Leghait, also known as Louise Le Ghait, was a Belgian photographer active during the 1850s in Brussels and Paris. She is considered to be the first Belgian woman who worked as an amateur photographer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crimes de la commune</span> Paris commune photos

Crimes de la Commune is a series of photomontages produced by French photographer Ernest-Charles Appert at the end of the Paris Commune. A Parisian photographer accredited to the Tribunal de la Seine, and sometimes cited as the forerunner of bertillonage, he photographed Communards incarcerated in Versailles and used these portraits in photomontages. This practice of committed photomontage is the subject of much debate. Furthermore, these photographs raise issues of both commercial practice and copyright.

Madame Vaudé-Green was a French photographer who worked in Paris in the 1850s and 1860s, specialising in photographs of religious art.

References

  1. "Exposition – Théâtre du pouvoir – Petite Galerie | Musée du Louvre | Paris". 2017-05-17. Retrieved 2017-06-21..
  2. "Exposition de photos d'Olivier Roller – Palazzo Altemps – Spazio Nuovo |". www.nuovimecenati.org (in French). Retrieved 2017-06-13.
  3. "Le festival Croisements va de l'avant !". La France en Chine (in French). Retrieved 2017-06-13.[ permanent dead link ]
  4. Multimedia, Pôle Sud Production. "Oser la photographie : 50 ans d'une collection d'avant garde à Arles". www.museereattu.arles.fr. Retrieved 2017-06-13.
  5. "Mobilier national : Expositions / Expositions précédentes". www.mobiliernational.culture.gouv.fr (in French). Retrieved 2017-06-13.
  6. "a l l e r dehors – La criée". www.criee.org (in French). Retrieved 2017-06-13.
  7. "Visions des Lumières Musée Cognacq-Jay". Artscape (in French). 20 February 2015. Retrieved 13 June 2017.
  8. "Mon ile de montmajour".
  9. Alsace20 (2013-09-16). "Expo "Figures du pouvoir" à La Filature". YouTube. Retrieved 2017-06-13.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  10. "Photographie olivier roller figures du pouvoir au muse 769 e des moulages lyon 3e – - Tribune de Lyon". www.tribunedelyon.fr (in French). Retrieved 2017-06-13.
  11. "Portraits photographique du pouvoir et de l'influence par Olivier Roller | Actuphoto". fr.actuphoto.com (in French). Retrieved 2017-06-13.[ permanent dead link ]
  12. Spazio Nuovo (2013-04-25). "Olivier Roller – Spazio Nuovo Gallery, Rome – 2013". YouTube. Retrieved 2017-06-13.
  13. "ISFCI & FotoLeggendo presentano 'Figures du pouvoir' di Olivier Roller". ISFCI BLOG (in Italian). 21 September 2011. Archived from the original on 8 November 2011. Retrieved 13 June 2017.
  14. "Figures du Pouvoir – GDD". www.grangededorigny.ch (in French). Retrieved 2017-06-13.
  15. "Empereurs romains et autres figures du pouvoir au Musée [] – Art Côte d'Azur". www.artcotedazur.fr (in French). Retrieved 2017-06-13.
  16. "Exposition d'Olivier Roller Figures du Pouvoir, portraits d'Olivier Roller". fukuoka-fr.blogspot.fr. 2 February 2011. Retrieved 2017-06-13.
  17. "Interview d'Olivier Roller | NEON Magazine". neon.color-lounge.com (in French). Retrieved 2017-06-13.
  18. "Nefta".
  19. "de l'air, des livres – de l'air, le magazine qui donne à voir". www.delair.fr (in French). Retrieved 2017-06-13.
  20. "Face(s)".
  21. "olivier roller photographer – mai 1981". www.olivierroller.com. Retrieved 2017-06-13.
  22. "Olivier roller photographer – faces".
  23. "olivier roller photographer – clarita's way". www.olivierroller.com. Retrieved 2017-06-13.