Philippe Vermès

Profile

Philippe Vermès set up his 4x5 inch room in an improvised studio along a road, not far from a gas station, during several biker gatherings in the late 1980s in Loudon, New Hampshire and Sturgis, South Dakota. Located near Mount Rushmore where the heads of four American presidents are carved in the rock, Sturgis is a village next to the Badlands. The result is far from the traditional myth conveyed by the legends of the West (the frontier, the wanderings, the Indians).

Philippe Vermès wanted to know more, to approach the myth "from the inside" in a way. Attracted by the camera and the magic of the negative/positive Polaroid, the bikers came to pose with their motorcycles, their compagnions, their families, their animals. The result is indeed far from the sulphureous images that are part of their legend. On the contrary, these portraits, mixed ages, sexes and progressions, bring together sensitive, natural and mischievous human beings.

Philippe Vermès, the itinerant portraitist of the small towns of yesteryear, grants them the right to be seen without value judgment, because he accepts them as they are. His portraits are full of information, full of details rich in observation that emerge from two traditions, that of photography and that of painting. A classically trained painter turned photographer, Philippe Vermès is the logical depository of these two related approaches.

Biography

Born in 1942, Philippe Vermès is a French artist photographer who lives and works in Paris.

A graduate of the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris, the photographer and portraitist transcribes with the eye of a painter in love with black & white portraiture.

Exhibitions (selection)

2000

- Visages d'une construction, Galerie Jean-Pierre Lavignes, Paris

1997

- Mais pour vivre il faut, Musée Nicéphore Nièpce, Chalon/Saône

1993

- A la recherche du père, Galerie L'espace photo, Paris

- FOTO 68, The Netherlands

1990

- Mois de la Photo, Collection Paris-Audiovisuel, Mairie du 16e, Paris

1989

- Portraits, Foto Galerie, RFA, Hamburg

1988

- Portraits d'artistes, Galerie Downtown, Paris

- American Bikers, Galerie Alpha du Lion, Paris

1987

- Portraits-Autoportraits, Montpellier

1986

- Portraits de sculpteurs, Galerie Daniel Sarver, Paris

- Centre culturel, Chelles, Seine-et-Marne

- La Closerie des Lilas, Paris

1985

- La Chambre, C.N.P, Palais de Tokyo, Paris

1984

- Manhattan, Galerie Village Voice, Paris

1983

- L'album de famille, Galerie Claude Aubry, Paris

1981

- La Maison Française, New York University, New York City


Publications (selection)

2013

- L'un par l'autre, collective work, Collection Photo Poche, Editions Actes Sud

1999

- Visages d'une construction, La Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris

1994

- La Chambre, Clémence de Biéville, Editions Joca Seria, Lausanne

1993

- A la recherche du père, Viviane Esders, Editions Paris Audiovisuel, Paris

1991

- A Pictorial Essay On Harley Davidson Owners, Harley Davidson Inc. & Iris Publications, Florida

1990

- Straightening Out The Corners : Portraits of American Bikers, Iris Publications, Florida

1986

- Portraits Polaroïd, La Closerie des Lilas, Paris


Prizes

1993

- Internship supervisor of portraits at the Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie, Arles

1992

- Kodak Gold Portrait Award, France

1986

- Photographer in residence at the Noesis Foundation, Spain

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