© Evelyn Hofer, Bowery, New York, 1964, courtoisie de la Galerie m, Bochum, Allemagne
© Evelyn Hofer, Three Boys at the Front Door, 1964, courtoisie de la Galerie m, Bochum, Allemagne
© Evelyn Hofer, Pine Street on a Sunday, New York, 1964, courtoisie de la Galerie m, Bochum, Allemagne
© Evelyn Hofer, Times Square at Night, 1964, courtoisie de la Galerie m, Bochum, Allemagne
© Evelyn Hofer, View from FDR Drive Downtown, 1964, courtoisie de la Galerie m, Bochum, Allemagne
© Evelyn Hofer, Bowery, Riker's, 1964, courtoisie de la Galerie m, Bochum, Allemagne

EVELYN HOFER

NEW YORK

26 February to 11 June 2022

In some fifty photographs taken between 1953 and 1975, this first French exhibition dedicated to the New York body of work of Evelyn Hofer (Germany, 1922 – Mexico, 2009) paints a portrait of a little-known author, “the most famous unknown photographer in the United States”. The phrase, coined by a New York Times critic, was said to make her smile; today, more than ten years after Hofer’s death, it still seems true. Her photography is, after all, discreet.

Her New York – she has lived there for exactly sixty years – is made up of placid facades, serene poses and uncluttered pavements; beneath the surface of her photographic image, the city is almost silent. We are far from the tumult already described in 1925 by John Dos Passos in his novel of American modernity, Manhattan Transfer; just as far from the urban cacophony exacerbated by a young William Klein in the same 1950s with his photographs taken at elbow-to-elbow.

In the city where everything is movement, Evelyn Hofer, in contrast, stops and applies herself to the practice of long exposure, at a good distance, with a tripod and a large format camera, often – and early – adopting colour. This sought-after classicism places her portraits of New York within a double, paradoxical movement: the calm of these streets gives off a feeling of immutability as much as it allows us to observe, in the depth of these skilfully staggered shots and deployed perspectives, the signs of an urban fabric in radical mutation.

In addition to black and white and colour photographs (including dye transfer prints), the exhibition combines magazines and illustrated books to illustrate the commissioned context in which, like the great majority of photographers of the period, her work developed.

Exhibition co-produced with gallery m, Bochum, Germany and GwinZegal, Guingamp.

Around the exhibition

OPENING
Friday 25 February, from 6pm

GUIDED TOURS
All audiences
Saturday 26 February, 4pm with Raphaëlle Stopin, curator of the exhibition
Saturday 26 March, 4pm, dubbed in sign language
Tuesday 26 April, 7pm
Saturday, June 11, 6pm

LECTURE
Thursday 12 May, 7pm
by Nathalie Roseau, architect and doctor in urban planning
The metropolis of the future: a photographic imagination

More informations HERE

SCREENING
Thursday 19 May, 8pm
New York Storeys
Short films on the theme of New York, in partnership with the Courtivore

WORKSHOPS FOR YOUNG AUDIENCES
Wednesday, April 27, 9:30-11:30 a.m.
Rouen Remix
Collage and stop motion workshop
6/10 years old
with the artist Clothilde Evide

Wednesday 20 April, 2pm-4.30pm
Rose York, Vert Nouille
Visit-workshop
Printmaking and postcards workshop
4/10 years old
with the artist Sophie Grassart (Tigre)

Free events.
Information & booking: info@centrephotographique.com