Vivian Maier at Musée du Luxembourg
From 15 September 2021 to 16 January 2022, the Luxembourg Museum will host the largest French retrospective dedicated to the photographer Vivian Maier.
Long unknown before being rediscovered in 2009 a few days after her disappearance, the American will have nevertheless marked the history of the vehicle with her photographs of the streets of New York and Chicago, which have recently made her a prominent figure. of street photography.
The career path that Vivian Maier (New York, 1926 – Chicago, 2009) took is unusual yet is that of one of the greatest photographers of the 20th century. It was at the heart of American society, in New York from 1951 then in Chicago from 1956, that the children’s governess meticulously observed the urban fabric that already reflected the great social and political changes in its history. It was the time of the American dream and overexposed modernity, the behind-the-scenes of which constituted the very essence of Vivian Maier’s work.
The exhibition allows the public to see archives of the photographer that were discovered in 2007 and have not been seen before: vintage photographs that Vivian Maier printed, super 8 films never shown, audio recordings…
As such the exhibition allows the full extent of the eminent artist’s work to be appreciated, and for her work to be placed in the history of photography.
About the Author
Vivian Dorothy Maier (February 1, 1926 – April 21, 2009) was an American street photographer whose work was discovered and recognized after her death.
She worked for about 40 years as a nanny, mostly in Chicago’s North Shore, while pursuing photography. She took more than 150,000 photographs during her lifetime, primarily of the people and architecture of Chicago, New York City, and Los Angeles, although she also traveled and photographed worldwide.
During her lifetime, Maier’s photographs were unknown and unpublished; many of her negatives were never developed. A Chicago collector, John Maloof, acquired some of Maier’s photos in 2007, while two other Chicago-based collectors, Ron Slattery and Randy Prow, also found some of Maier’s prints and negatives in her boxes and suitcases around the same time.
Maier’s photographs were first published on the Internet in July 2008, by Slattery, but the work received little response. In October 2009, Maloof linked his blog to a selection of Maier’s photographs on the image-sharing website Flickr, and the results went viral, with thousands of people expressing interest. Maier’s work subsequently attracted critical acclaim, and since then, Maier’s photographs have been exhibited around the world.
Her life and work have been the subject of books and documentary films, including the film Finding Vivian Maier (2013), which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 87th Academy Awards. (via Wikipedia.org)
Vivian Maier
15 September 2021 – 16 January 2022
MUSÉE DU LUXEMBOURG – Paris
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