Photographs by James Barnor & a selection of images « IT’S GREAT by Marc Riboud TO BE YOUNG »

Exhibition from Thursday February the 15th, until Saturday March the 31rst, 2018.

Galerie Clémentine de la Féronnière [second courtyard] 51, rue saint-Louis-en-l’île - 75004 Paris, FRANCE [email protected] Phone : +33(0)1.42.38.88.85 / +33(0)6.50.06.98.68 Opening from Tuesday to Saturday, from 11am to 7pm and by appointment

Public opening : Thursday February the 15th, from 6pm until 9pm. Press preview : Thursday February the 15th, from de 4pm until 6pm (with the artist James Barnor)

Tour of the exhibition PRESS : Neutral Grey with James Barnor : [email protected] Tuesday February the 27th at 7pm Phone. : +33 (0)6.50.05.96.88

In connection with the second Parisian exhibition of the photographer James Barnor, the gal- lery shall bring together an ensemble of prints of varied origins, including a selection of unseen images brought to you further to the archiving of James Barnor’s archives – in collaboration with the photographer – and printed from original negatives on silver-based paper. In 2015, the gallery Clémentine de la Feronnière showed part of the touring exhibition Ever Young, curated by Renee Mussai (Autograph ABP) and seized the opportunity to published a book. Since then, an intense collaboration with the photographer lead to several major break- throughs : the acquisition, in 2016, of 70 prints by the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris (currently on display in the garden’s cabinets), the production of an exhibition for the Bamako Bienale in 2017 (which ended on January the 31rst 2018), but above all it lead to the launch of the digitizing and organizing of James’s archives, mostly from negatives.

In the exhibition which will take place from February the 15th until March the 31rst, 2018, the gallery proposes to focus on the work of James Barnor as a witness photographer, and to make a careful comparison with a selection of photographs by another contemporary photographer : Marc Riboud. If both men never met, they worked in similar places (here and England) and over a similar period of time. By going beyond a simple reading of what these iconic images produced by two masters of – one from the North, the other from the South – would have left in the history of the medium, we offer a narrative punctuated by visible clues and photographic stories which James Barnor will share with us. This was made possible thanks to David Riboud who, a few years ago, brought to James Barnor a small print of his father. The photo showed the inscription : “It’s great to be young”, a phrase that echoes the name given by James to his studio in the 50’s : the “Ever Young Studio”. The work of these two photogra- phers – beyond their differences - had already crossed path during the 2012 exhibition at the “Another London”. JAMES BARNOR , années 1970 (c) James Barnor / Neutral Grey

JAMES BARNOR

Born in 1929 in Ghana, James Barnor experienced first-hand his country’s independence as well as the formation of the diaspora to London in the 1960s. In the early 1950s, he opened his famous Ever Young studio in Accra, where he immortalised a nation craving modernity and in- dependence in an ambiance that was animated by conversation and highlife music. He was the first photo-journalist to collaborate with the , a newspaper published in Ghana by the London Group. Close to Drum, an important lifestyle magazine founded in Sou- th Africa in 1951 and symbol of the anti-apartheid movement, he did several assignments for them in a climate of euphoria and celebration. In 1959, two years after Ghana’s independence, James Barnor left for London, a city in the throes of becoming a multicultural capital, to further his photographic knowledge. He discovered colour processing at the Medway College of Art and his photos were published on the front cover of Drum. He eloquently caught the zeitgeist of Swinging London and the experiences of the African diaspora in the capital. Towards the end of the 1960s he was recruited by Agfa-Gevaert and returned to Ghana to set up the country’s first colour laboratory. There he stayed for the next 20 years, working in his new X23 studio as an independent photographer and for a handful of State agencies in Accra. Today James Barnor lives in the UK devoting most of his time to his work, in a spirit of transmission. FESTIVALS Autriche, Baden 8/06-30/09/2018 | La Gacilly-Baden Photo James Barnor, Ever Young

France, La Gacilly 2/06-30/09/2017 | Festival de La Gacilly James Barnor, Ever Young

ÉDITION James Barnor, Ever Young 176 p. 978-2-9542-2664-4 45 € Octobre 2015 Co-édition Clémentine de la Féronnière/ Autograph ABP

COLLECTIONS National Portrait Gallery (acquisition 2017) JAMES BARNOR Erlin Ibreck, Drum cover girl, photographiée chez un artiste à Kilburn, Musée du quai Branly (acquisition 2016) Londres, 1966 Victoria and Albert museum (acquisition 2010) (c) James Barnor / Neutral Grey Tate Modern (acquisition 2010)

EXPOSITIONS France, Paris 1/02/2017–30/06/2017 | Vitrine jardin, musée du quai Branly Présentation de l’acquisition des photographies de James Barnor

Mali, Bamako 2/12/2017–31/01/2018 | 11e biennale des Rencontres de Bamako, Musée du District La Vie selon James Barnor, photographies du Ghana et du Royaume-Uni, 1948-1980

France, Paris 22/09-22/11/2015 | Galerie Clémentine de la Féronnière James Barnor, Ever Young (curatée par Renée Mussai/ Autograph ABP, présentée en itinérance à Londres, New York, Toronto, Le Cap… depuis 2009)

Pays-Bas, Amsterdam 2014 | Tropen Museum Exposition collective Look at me!

Royaume-Uni, Londres 27/07–16/09/2012 | Tate Britain Exposition collective Another London, International Photographes Capture City Life 1930-1980, Tate Modern

JAMES BARNOR Royaume-Uni, Londres Une assistante de la boutique Sick-Hagemeyer, 2007 | Accra, 1971 Mr Barnor’s Independence Diaries (c) James Barnor / Neutral Grey MARC RIBOUD Ghana, 1960 (c) Marc Riboud MARC RIBOUD

Born in 1923, Marc Riboud began his career as a photographer after the war and published his first photograph in 1953, in the magazine Life. Endorsed by Henri Cartier-Bresson and , he joins the agency , becoming part of a longstanding tradition of press photography authors. As early as 1955, he travels the world, skimming the roads from Calcutta in India to Tokyo. When in Japan in 1958, Japanese femininity comes across his reportages and provides him with a source of inspiration for his first book Women of Japan. Further to the Ghanaian example, many African countries take their independence in the early 60’s, events which the photog- rapher immortalizes. In 1962, Marc Riboud is one of the few privileged observer of Algeria’s independence, a country wounded by years of conflict. From 1965 onwards, Marc Riboud covers many major events of our contemporary history, from the Maoist Cultural Revolution, the anti- demonstrations, to the Watergate inves- tigations. In 1979 he leaves Magnum. During the 80’s and 90’s he regularly returns to China to document the upheavals of the Chinese society on which he produces two books with Robert Delpire Publications. In 1998, Marc Riboud returns to Africa, in Johannesburg and Soweto, right after the end of apartheid. His last reportages cover the changes of the Xxth century. In 2011, 192 original prints dating back from 1950 to 1970, are integrated to the permanent collection of the Centre Pompidou. Marc Riboud passes away at the age of 93, in Paris, on August the 30th 2016. The core of his archive will be integrated to the collections of the Musée National d’Arts Asiatiques-Guimet (National museum for the asian arts)