RETOUR SUR LES LIEUX - Paris

PRESS PACK
EXPOSITION PROLONGED UNTIL JUNE 3 2007
The looting of Jewish property in Paris.
“RETOUR SUR LES LIEUX”*
(*‘return to the scene’)
Exhibition organised by the BETC agency and the Passage du Désir.
with the backing of the Paris Municipality, the Caisse des Dépôts, Havas, Partizan,
and the Fondation Rothschild-Institut Alain de Rothschild
in cooperation with the Amicale Austerlitz, Lévitan, Bassano.
Exhibition curator: Sarah Gensburger
with the participation of Michèle Cohen
in collaboration with Jean-Marc Dreyfus
Exhibition from 18 April to 3 June 2007
Every day except Tuesday from 11 am to 7 pm
ADMISSION FREE
PASSAGE DU DESIR
85-87, rue du Faubourg Saint-Martin 75010 Paris
Metro: Château d’Eau or Gare de l’Est
Press Contact
Miranda Salt
COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR
Tel: + 33 1 56 41 39 95
Email: [email protected]
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“RETOUR SUR LES LIEUX
From 18 April to 20 May 2007, the Passage du Désir will propose visitors an unusual experience: an exhibition whose subject is
the exhibition venue itself, a moment of its history.
The building located on 85/87 rue du Faubourg St Martin, which now houses the Passage du Désir exhibition centre as well as the
BETC Euro RSCG advertising agency, had a special destiny during the last war. Between July 1943 and August 1944, the former
Lévitan building "Aryanized" by the Nazis was used as a labour camp whose inmates, picked from the internees in the camp at
Drancy, were forced to sort, repair and pack the furniture and objects looted by the Nazis from the apartments of Jewish families
in Paris.
In a building confiscated from a Jew, Jews were made to sort objects taken from apartments left behind by Jews, most of whom
were taken to extermination camps, and in this way every trace of their existence was made to disappear, while the invaders
profited from these objects which were sent on to Germany: the building played its role in the implementation of a vast and
precise project whose logic was implacable.
Because the seclusion of these detainees in the building was organised with great discretion, the neighbourhood has kept hardly
any memory of what it was used for. And because, for complex reasons, very few of the surviving detainees spoke about it after
the war, its history remained unknown for a long time.
Until 1998, when former internees and some of their descendants set up an association (Amicale Austerlitz, Lévitan, Bassano).
In November 2003, on the association's initiative, two young historians, Jean-Marc Dreyfus and Sarah Gensburger, recounted the
history of the camp and other places involved in the spoliation operation in a book published by Fayard and entitled "Des Camps
dans Paris. Austerlitz, Lévitan, Bassano. July 1943-Août 1944".
Following the book's publication, the BETC Euro RSCG advertising agency took the initiative of placing a plaque on the building to
recall what happened there during the war. It was unveiled in the presence of the Mayor of the 10th arrondissement of Paris on 24
April 2005.
Meanwhile, in 2004, a small album of photos was identified in the German federal archives in Coblenz: probably taken by a
German soldier for propaganda reasons. Between July 1943 and August 1944, the former Lévitan building "Aryanized" by the
Nazis was used as a labour camp whose inmates, picked from the internees in the camp at Drancy, were forced to sort, repair and
pack the furniture and objects looted by the Nazis from the apartments of Jewish families in Paris.
In a building confiscated from a Jew, Jews were made to sort objects taken from apartments left behind by Jews, most of whom
were taken to extermination camps, and in this way every trace of their existence was made to disappear, while the invaders
profited from these objects which were sent on to Germany: the building played its role in the implementation of a vast and
precise project whose logic was implacable.
Because the seclusion of these detainees in the building was organised with great discretion, the neighbourhood has kept hardly
any memory of what it was used for. And because, for complex reasons, very few of the surviving detainees spoke about it after
the war, its history remained unknown for a long time.
Until 1998, when former internees and some of their descendants set up an association (Amicale Austerlitz, Lévitan, Bassano).
In November 2003, on the association's initiative, two young historians, Jean-Marc Dreyfus and Sarah Gensburger, recounted the
history of the camp and other places involved in the spoliation operation in a book published by Fayard and entitled "Des Camps
dans Paris. Austerlitz, Lévitan, Bassano. July 1943-Août 1944".
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Following the book's publication, the BETC Euro RSCG advertising agency took the initiative of placing a plaque on the building to
recall what happened there during the war. It was unveiled in the presence of the Mayor of the 10th arrondissement of Paris on 24
April 2005.
Meanwhile, in 2004, a small album of photos was identified in the German federal archives in Coblenz: probably taken by a
German soldier for propaganda reasons, these 85 photos show all the places where the objects belonging to Jews were
transported, stored and warehoused: Palais de Tokyo, Musée du Louvre, a town house on the rue Bassano, Gare du Nord,
Entrepôts et Magasins Généraux d’Aubervilliers. But most of these photos were taken in the Lévitan building.
Palais de Tokyo, Musée du Louvre, a town house on the rue Bassano, Gare du Nord, Entrepôts et Magasins Généraux
d’Aubervilliers. But most of these photos were taken in the Lévitan building.
They show the arrival of crates in removal lorries, the piles of objects, the accumulations of different types of china, clothing, toys.
We can see the detainees at work, stacking, classifying, repairing. It becomes clear that what is referred to as the "looting of
Jewish property" did not just concern works of art and valuable paintings but also modest objects of daily life – shoes, light bulbs,
saucepans, sheets. We can see Nazi worthies come to inspect the building and pick out objects for themselves, as if in an ideal
shop where the finest pieces of furniture are tastefully displayed to catch the shopper's eye.
We think it is important that these photos be exhibited in the very place where they were taken.
The unexpected encounter between what the Lévitan building has become today: a place dedicated to modernity – avant-garde
events, fashion, advertising, design – and its very dark past, now recognised, recalled and respected, is not the least interest of
this exhibition: it also unveils in concrete fashion to the neighbourhood what had been so carefully concealed from it – or what it
had not been able to or wanted to see – during these years. And it raises fascinating questions for the historian about the role of
the image, and particularly the photo, in our knowledge and perception of the past.
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THE LOOTING OF JEWISH PROPERTY IN PARIS
1940: Start of the looting: the art collections of Jews
The looting of property belonging to Jews began in June 1940 when German troops arrived in Paris. Some prestigious collections
of works of art put together by Jewish families were confiscated from their owners and stored in different places. If not sold on the
art market, they were sent off to Germany to enter the private collections of Nazi dignitaries or museums. Directed by the
Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR), this specific type of pillage continued up to the liberation of Paris.
1942: Organisation of the looting of the apartments of Jewish families in Paris
At the end of 1941, it was decided to extend the looting to include all Jewish belongings. Called Möbel Aktion (operation
furniture), this new operation consisted of emptying the apartments no longer inhabited by Jews owing to their deportation or
disappearance into clandestinity 1. A new department was set up, the Dienststelle Westen (western service). Set up in spring 1942,
and run by Kurt Von Behr, this organisation identified the properties whose Jewish occupants were absent. Removal companies,
requisitioned for these operations, then removed the contents.
The loot was in principle sent to Germany to be distributed to German civilian populations in the new eastern territories conquered
by Germany. The finest objects were distributed to officers and leading figures. In both cases, it was necessary to sort these objects
and furniture before sending them to their beneficiaries. But the Dienststelle Westen did not have enough staff for this.
1943: Setting up of three labour camps to sort the contents of the apartments
In the summer of 1943, in Drancy camp, several categories of detainees were temporarily excluded from deportation. The wives of
prisoners of war were in principle protected by the Hague convention and could come in useful as hostages in any eventual
diplomatic negotiations. The fate of Jews classified as "spouses of Aryans" and "half" or "quarter" Jews had not been decided. So
the internees making up these three groups could be lent to the Dienststelle Westen.
They formed the majority of the detainees transferred to the Paris warehouses which received daily arrivals of crates of objects
and furniture from apartments previously inhabited by Jews. Between July 1943 and August 1944, three of these warehouses
became labour camps. While the internees continued to belong to the camp in Drancy, they lived and worked in these sorting
warehouses. They could also be assigned for the day to other sites to load wagons on trains bound for Germany or to help unload
removal trucks.
1944: The removal of the loot and the fate of the detainees
According to a low estimate, by 31 July 1944, Möbel Aktion had emptied 38,000 apartments in the Paris region. Their contents
were sorted by at least 795 Jewish internees of whom 164 were finally deported to Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen.
Between 1943 and 1944, this loot was progressively transported to Germany by train from two main sites: the Gare du Nord, and
the canal2 dock alongside the warehouses of the Entrepôts et Magasins Généraux in Aubervilliers.
1
WIEVIORKA, ANNETTE, A ZOULAY, FLORIANE, Le pillage des appartements and son indemnisation, Mattéoli
Commission Report, Paris, La Documentation française, 2000.
2
This stretch of canal is now called the Bassin d'Aubervilliers.
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WHERE THE LOOT WAS PROCESSED
The duration, extent and diversity of these looting operations led to the multiplication of warehouses dedicated to them in Paris
and its environs3. Some of these places were used only to store the furniture and objects, while others also held detainees from
Drancy camp. Sometimes the goods concerned were valueless, while others were priceless.
85/87 rue du Faubourg Saint-Martin 75010 Paris
When the war was declared, 85/87 rue du Faubourg Saint-Martin housed one of the furniture shops of the Lévitan chain whose
owner, Wolf Lévitan, was a Jew. The building was confiscated as part of the "Aryanization" process and requisitioned by the
Dienststelle Westen in the summer of 1943. The Lévitan shop became the Lager-Ost (eastern camp). 120 internees of Drancy camp
were transferred here on 18 July 1943.
During the day, the detainees worked on the different floors sorting the objects that arrived daily and in great numbers. They
emptied the crates, cleaned their contents and methodically classified the loot. Some of them recognised belongings of their family
or friends. At night, they ate and slept on the top floor. Sometimes they were allowed out on the flat roof, the only possibility to
get fresh air and see the daylight. On 12 August 1944, the Jews that had not yet been deported and were still in the Lager-Ost
were evacuated by bus to Drancy. Some managed to escape on the way. The others were finally released on 18 August 1944.
43 quai de la Gare 75013 Paris
While the objects were conveyed to Lévitan, most of the furniture was stored on the site of the Entrepôts et Magasins Généraux at
43 quai de la Gare 4. On 1 November, 194 Jews from Drancy were taken here to work on repairing and handling this loot. The
camp, also called "Austerlitz" owing to its closeness to the railway station of that name, held up to 400 detainees. They were in
turn evacuated to Drancy on 12 August 1944.
2 rue de Bassano 75116 Paris
In 1942, the mansion at 2 rue de Bassano was requisitioned by the Dienststelle Westen while it was being "Aryanized". Before the
war it had belonged to members of the Cahen d’Anvers family who had had it built. Von Behr's department used it at first as a
furniture warehouse. The valuable objects and outstanding items were stored here. In March 1944, 60 Jews were transferred here
to work and live. Their craft skills were used, and workshops for haute couture, leatherwork, gold and silversmithing and radio
repairs were set up. The internees who had not been deported left the Bassano camp for Drancy on 5 August 1944 where they
were finally freed.
The basements of the Palais de Tokyo
The basements of the Palais de Tokyo, managed by the Musées Nationaux, were requisitioned by the Dienststelle Westen in
October 1942. On 15 November, removal trucks brought the first pianos here through the delivery entrance on the rue de la
Manutention. Up to the Liberation, these bulky musical instruments were stored in such large numbers that they took up most of
the space. Furniture and fragments of furniture were also kept here at different periods.
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Apart from the five places mentioned in detail here, and to give only a few examples: the warehouses on the
rue Scribe, the avenue Foch, 104 rue Richeplace and the Porte de Versailles.
4
Today quai Panhard-Levassor.
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The Louvre sequestration
In October 1940, at the request of the ERR, the German department for the protection of works of art, Jacques Jaujard, director of
the Louvre museum, agreed to put three rooms of the Louvre at its disposal. He hoped to be able to monitor the operations and
thus protect the art collections confiscated by Rosenberg's section from their Jewish owners. On 5 October 1940, 51 crates
containing works from the Hôtel de Rothschild arrived in the three ground-floor rooms of the museum, located on the west wing of
the Cour Carrée to the north of the Pavillon Sully. What came to be known as the "Louvre sequestration" eventually took up six
rooms.
But, as the ERR continued to make increasing demands, and realising that he would not be able to protect the stored collections,
Jacques Jaujard refused a new extension. The ERR quickly established its principal warehouse in the Jeu de Paume museum that
was to serve as the nerve centre of its looting of works of art. The Louvre rooms continued to be used, however, and there was a
constant to-and-fro between them and the Jeu de Paume, and between these two warehouses and the Gare du Nord and the
Entrepôts et Magasins Généraux site in Aubervilliers where they were loaded on trains bound for Germany.
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HISTORY
JEWISH PROPERTY
"RETOUR SUR LES LIEUX”
OF THE LOOTING OF
THE ORIGINS OF THE EXHIBITION
AND IMAGES FROM THE PAST:
by Sarah Gensburger
Centre d’Etudes Européennes, Sciences Po
Telling and seeing
In 2003, with Jean-Marc Dreyfus, I published Camps dans Paris. Austerlitz. Lévitan. Bassano. Juillet 1943-1944 which recounts the
history of "Operation Furniture" and the role played in it by the three labour camps in Paris annexed to Drancy. The
reconstruction of this story was based only on widely dispersed and printed archives. Perhaps owing to a certain lack of interest in
this material or to a lack of systematisation in the research for sources, only a few ill-assorted photographs were identified in this
initial body of material.
But a year after the publication of this work we were alerted by Floriane Azoulay, a fellow historian, that she had got hold of an
album of 85 photographs of "our camps". Stored and declassified in the German federal archives in Coblenz, these images
allowed us to "see" the "history" that we had put together from textual documents. These photos seemed to have been taken to
"illustrate" it. The origin of this exhibition lies in this disturbing experience.
Photographs and illustrations
In an image-saturated society, these archived photographs at first seemed to provide the efficiency and clarity that was lacking in
the tale that we had put together. In the course of interviews that I had held with former detainees, and as shown in the archived
documents that we had unearthed, it was clear that the pace of the delivery of crates for the work of sorting was very intense.
Several detainees had told me of their impression of being "overwhelmed" by the work. The large heaps of objects shown in these
photographs and the care devoted to recovering the smallest object show this differently and very forcibly indeed. The image of
the woman detainee testing light bulbs is particularly striking in this regard.
Similarly, these images show in concrete detail the poverty and ordinariness of the possessions of the vast majority of Jewish
families, far from the recurring fantasies fed by references to great collections which largely contributed to creating this clichéd
representation in the past. So the initial objective of my participation in this exhibition project was to use it as a means of getting
across the conclusions of the historical research that I had carried out with Jean-Marc Dreyfus, through other media and reaching a
wider audience
Images, history and representations of the past
However, as the project advanced, I gradually came to see it as a way of focusing on the place of images in our perception of the
past and in our knowledge of it. The recovered album itself appeared as the translation of a historically dated and socially located
way of looking. It was put together in 1948 by American officers in charge of the operations to restore looted property using
photographs abandoned by the German troops in a department store in Paris used for the sorting work of "Operation Furniture".
Its organisation by type of goods, as in a catalogue, and the mix of the places where the pictures were taken, reflect this source.
In this examination of the place of images in our perception and knowledge of the past, my constant dialogue with Michèle Cohen,
Creative Director at BETC Euro RSCG, was highly stimulating. As we worked together, with our widely diverging backgrounds, it was
confirmed to us that showing a photograph with the intention of decrypting it means accepting from the outset the idea that we
cannot control everything that is "told" in it. An image always "tells" more, or at least something other than what the
intellectually verifiable facts of the historian may signify.
Whereas the piles of shoes echo the images of the sorted piles of prisoners' possessions of the "Canada" hut in Auschwitz and the
artistic works inspired by them, such as those of Christian Boltanski, the stands of merchandise that the detainees were obliged to
set up evoke the everyday life of department stores in Paris.
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Hence this exhibition is not intended to be limited to showing images that recount the past. It also seeks to get visitors to reflect on
their relationship with the photographs which are its material and on the places which they are invited to revisit. In its own modest
way, it fits into a movement that began a decade ago with the work carried out on the photographs dealing with the Second World
War, and particularly with the Genocide of the Jews, which have played a decisive role 5. The contrast between an "unspeakable"
experience and the "visibility" that is given to it by the numerous photos of this event that have been preserved raises with
particular acuity the question of the contemporary use of images to recount the past, in a word, to "say" history in today's society.
LEST WE FORGET.
by Michèle Cohen.
Creative Director. BETC Euro RSCG
When in 2001 we came to 85 rue du Faubourg Saint Martin – by "we" I mean the 300 or so employees of BETC – happy to leave
the residential outer-Parisian suburb of Levallois for this large building located in a working-class district in the heart of Paris, this
group of advertisers with an average age of 30 was a little intimidated by the grandeur and beauty of the place and we knew
nothing about its history. Rémi Babinet, founder of the agency, had discovered it and liked it straight away. A talented young
architect, Frédéric Jung, had entirely redesigned the interior to bring in more light, open up the space and make it comfortable.
Inventive interior designers had then added features around it that are both useful and full of spirit. Everything was done to make
it a cheerful and efficient place to work in.
The workers had discovered high up on the façade the fine inscription: "Aux Classes Laborieuses" (To the Working Classes). And
we then learned that this had been the name of a textile department store, the first destination of the building. We then learned
that it subsequently became the "Lévitan" department store, which is what it was still called in the neighbourhood although for
years it had been occupied only by a car park. This name recalled for the oldest among us the start of the advertisement: "Bien le
bonjour Monsieur Lévitan, vous avez des meubles qui durent longtemps!" (Good day to you Mr Lévitan, your furniture lasts a long
time!), in the jingle written by Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet in the fifties. So the name was associated with the amusing early days of
advertising for outdated burr walnut furniture, with everything except the anti-Semitic propaganda that we discovered at a later
date on a Nazi poster showing Mr Lévitan, "the hoarder", with his arms full of gold bars.
It was when we read the book by Jean-Marc Dreyfus and Sarah Gensburger that we learned of the events that had unfolded here
during the war, and became aware of their gravity and the huge gap there was between that sinister history and our present
vitality. Time had passed, life had gone on, and that was good, but now we had respect this past by remembering it.
What indeed could be the reaction of the young people of today who make up most of the new occupants of the building, faced
with this terrible past? Feel horrified? Feel sorrow? Repress it? No, just one thing: not forget it.
5
DELAGE, CHRISTIAN. 2006. La Verité par l’image. De Nuremberg au procès Milosevic. Paris: Denoël; DIDIHUBERMAN. G EORGES. 2003. Images malgré tout. Paris: Editions de Minuit and CHEROUX, CLEMENT (dir.).
2001. Mémoire des camps: photographies des camps de concentration and d’extermination Nazis: 1933-1999.
Paris: MarVal.
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THE EXHIBITION'S DESIGN, OR THE WALL AND THE TRACE.
“RETOUR SUR LES LIEUX” – return to the scene: they are here, those places, quite real and quite tangible. And in the Passage du
Désir, on the ground floor of the building, nothing has changed since its origin. The space has remained the same: concrete pillars
and bare walls, dusty, full of hollows and bumps. And this incompletion is what makes the Passage du Désir a very modern
exhibition centre for all the contemporary works that are normally put on view for visitors here.
So, for this return, we very soon came up with the idea that we ought not to develop these photos, print them on paper and frame
them. No, just project them, not on a screen but on the bare walls. And all the better if the defects of the walls could be seen
through them, since this is the history of the building, and this is precisely what the exhibition is about.
There is a second room in the Passage du Désir, with cracked walls surmounted by a fine cupola in glass mosaic. We imagined for
it a second way of expressing this "return to the scene" – by putting face to face old photos of the places that processed the loot,
period photos, and others taken today, without any staging of them, on the same level. Before/after: what is left? How have the
places changed? We did not want to demonstrate anything, just let people see. Olivier Amsellem took the photos of today. Because
he loves architecture, abandoned places, wastelands, and knows how to capture their beauty.
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THE PASSAGE DU DESIR
Founded in 2003 by the BETC Euro RSCG agency, the Passage du Désir takes its name from the cobblestone alley close to the
building. This large space of 800 square metres is a raw, unfinished but living space which exhibitors can adapt to suit their
purposes.
The Passage du Désir is a new venue for intersecting cultural events that bring together and introduce France to the diverse
influences of new works that may be works of art or not, design, photography, literature, documentation, fashion or contemporary
dance. Getting away from the cloistered worlds of the "classic" artistic disciplines, encouraging the interbreeding of forms and
expressions: the Passage du Désir wishes to be open to all forms of artistic expression, and its ambition is to discover, select and
show the most surprising, the most intelligent and the most creative of them.
This programming freedom exists because of the centre's management by a non-profit-making organisation, the Association du
Passage du Désir.
Among the numerous events that have been hosted by the Passage du Désir since it was opened, the public has been able to
discover: ‘Americaland’, photos by Alex S. MacLean; ‘Buzzworld’, the work of the Dutch video maker and photographer Rineke
Dijkstra (in the framework of the Festival d’Automne à Paris); ‘Archive – endangered waters’, a multimedia installation by the
Icelandic artist Ruri; a retrospective of the work of the Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos; ‘Things As They Are’: World Press
Photo/Month of the Photo in Paris.
BETC Euro RSCG
BETC, the leading French advertising agency, was crowned the Most Creative Agency by CB News ten times in 12 years - from 1994
to 2006 - and Best Agency in Europe (Ad Age).
A place of encounters, exchanges and collaboration between international directors, photographers and musicians, BETC has
always striven to be open to the talents and imaginations of artists and creative people. Each campaign is a fertile and inspiring
encounter between these talents and the brands we work with.
Evian, Air France, Canal+ and Peugeot are just four of the major brands for which the BETC Euro RSCG agency has constructed
advertising worlds that are unique, powerful and solidly anchored in the modern world.
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THE LOOTING OF JEWISH PROPERTY IN PARIS. “RETOUR SUR LES LIEUX”
Exhibition details
OPENING DATES AND TIMES:
18 April – 20 May 2007
Every day except Tuesday, from 11 am to 7 pm
Admission free
ADDRESS:
Passage du Désir
85-87, rue du Faubourg Saint-Martin 75010 Paris
Metro: Château d’Eau or Gare de l’Est
Tel: 33 1 56 41 37 63
PRODUCER OF THE EXHIBITION:
Le Passage du Désir:
Chairman: Rémi Babinet
Curator: Catherine Mathis
PROJECT ORGANISER:
Sarah Gensburger
With the participation of Michèle Cohen
THE ORGANISERS:
Sarah Gensburger
A graduate of ENS Cachan and IEP Paris, Sarah Gensburger is an "agregée" in social science and obtained her PhD at EHESS. She
is the author with Jean-Marc Dreyfus of Des Camps dans Paris. Austerlitz, Lévitan, Bassano. Juillet 1943-Août 1944, Paris, Fayard,
2003.
Currently doing post-doctoral studies at the Centre d’Etudes Européennes de Sciences Po, she is working on the social processes of
remembering and on the construction of public policies in the field of commemoration. Her sociology thesis examines the role of
memory as expressed in the title of "Righteous Among the Nations", conferred since 1963 by the Yad Vashem Institute to non-Jews
who saved Jews during the Second World War. She has published several articles on these questions in French and foreign
scientific journals.
In autumn 2007, Sarah Gensburger's Images de la spoliation des Juifs à Paris. Ecriture de l’histoire et sources photographiques
will be published by Editions Textuel: the images used in this exhibition will be reproduced in it, and this book will also examine
how photographs can be used as sources for the writing of history.
To carry out the work leading up to this exhibition, she benefited from the invaluable assistance of her colleague Jean-Marc
Dreyfus, historian, as well as that of Dimitri Salmon, art historian and scientific consultant to the Department of Paintings of the
Musée du Louvre, and of André Krol, member of the association "Histoire et Vie du 10ème". Of course, this project could not have
been carried through without the constant support of the members of the "Amicale Austerlitz, Lévitan, Bassano" and, above all, of
its General Secretary, Denise Weill.
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Michèle Cohen
Michèle Cohen was a Producer for 12 years with the radio station France-Culture. She wrote and directed programmes on
philosophers and language and many documentaries, and in 1983 a long autobiographical account, "Jonas qui n’est jamais
parti", followed ten years later by a book of photos on the same subject: "Rouisa et Gagou, portraits de famille". She began to
work in advertising in 1986, first as a writer for Publicis, Saatchi and Saatchi, and McCann-Erickson. Then as Creative Director for
Saatchi. She has spent seven years as Creative Director with BETC Euro RSCG, handling the budgets of Lu, Le Parisien, Reckitt, Le
Macif, Psychologies, to mention a few. She wrote and directed for Arte a 65-minute documentary: "le monde merveilleux de la
publicité ", broadcast in December 2006.
Dominique Breemersch
A lighting engineer for many years – theatre, opera, circus, music - Dominique Breemersch is also the layout designer of the
principal events of the Passage du Désir, notably the retrospective of the Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos, and the
photography exhibitions of Rémi Noël and Clayton Burkhart.
He is one of the assistants of the artist James Turrell, with whom he is currently preparing the revised illumination of the Pont du
Gard and the head office of the Caisse des Dépôts bank in Paris, as well as the stage design of "To Be Sung", the opera by Pascal
Dusapin. Assistant to the lighting engineer Hervé Descottes for the lighting of the Guerlain company's shop and beauty salon
(designed by André Putman) and for the lighting of the Van Cleef and Arpels shop in Paris, he has worked with the designer
Patrick Jouin on numerous projects such as "la discothèque" – a son et lumière installation for the "nuits off" of the palace of
Versailles, and "Barbe Bleue" for "Lille 2004". He has invented a devise to assist sleeping and waking based on colour. He is
currently preparing exhibitions with Marc Couturier, and a giant stained-glass window for the Musée des Beaux Arts in Lille.
Olivier Amsellem
Born in Marseille on 2 February 1971, Olivier Amsellem lives and works between Marseille and Paris.
An award-winner at the Fashion and Photography festival of Hyères in 1998, he works with numerous international magazines:
Purple, Big Magazine, Dazed & Confused, Another Magazine, Intersection, Magazine, Cross, Pictures, Jalouse, Agenda, Le monde
2, Libération Style and Rendez vous.
He has had numerous personal exhibitions: in 1998 at the Villa Noailles in Hyères, at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris in
1999. In 2001 he exhibited in the studio of the Centre National de la Photographie in Paris, in 2003 at the Centre des
Architectures d’Urbanisme et de l’Environnement des Hauts-de-Seine. At the Villa Noailles in Hyères: "Variation moderne" in 2005.
In 2006, a personal exhibition at the Centre Vinatier in Lyon and a collective exhibition, "Clinic", at the MAC in Lyon.
PHOTOGRAPHIC CREDITS AND LEGAL INFORMATION
The photograph by Olivier Amsellem enclosed with this press kit can be reproduced to illustrate articles relating to the exhibition.
Credit it to Olivier Amsellem.
With regard to the five archive images that we send you, they can be reproduced without prior authorisation, crediting them as
"BA-KO, B323/311". In principle, very modest copyright fees are payable, after publication. Just send a copy of the
publication concerned, specifying the print run, to the German federal archives which will then send a bill to the newspaper:
Bundesarchiv
Frau Martens
Postdamer StraBe 1
56075 Koblenz
For information purposes, these inclusive copyright fees (per image used) vary between a minimum of about 15 euros for a print
run of under 3,000 copies and a maximum of 180 euros for a print run of over 300,000 copies.
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