François-Marie Banier: True Stories

In the exhibition “True Stories”, Istanbul Modern Photography Gallery presented works by the French photographer, author, and painter François-Marie Banier. Having carved his name in French photography through his unique aesthetic universe, Banier tests the vision with the act of reading and employs words, appearances, forms and colors in his works.

François-Marie Banier became known as a poet and novelist in the 1960s, but later he shifted focus to play a central role in photography and painting. The exhibitions begins on the street, with the artist’s moment of encounter with pedestrians, who he named as his "passers-by". For Banier, the streets are not just places where he takes photographs but at the same time his studio. Camera in hand he impulsively plunges into life, sometimes in the streets of Paris, sometimes in cities in other countries.

François-Marie Banier, photograher of artists and other famous figures as well as people who are unknown, captured people such as Salvador Dali, Ray Charles, Louise Bourgeois, Samuel Beckett, Andy Warhol, Nicole Kidman, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Yaşar Kemal and Ara Güler completely expose their natural state. The artist’s photographs, as words, paint and images spread over the photograph, syntheses that both conceal and reveal the image emerge as riddles that require solving afresh each time. His photographs are each works created from life and relating to life, presenting nobility, drama, happiness and unhappiness in a sensitive balance that may be ironic or tragic. Consisting of works on the relationship between photograph, light, writing and painting, “True Stories”, which can be understood as the artist’s photographic novel, presented more than a 100 works in six sections.

Curator: Engin Özendes (ESFIAP)