Challenge what you remember of Paris in this new exhibition.

New Photo Exhibition Shows Paris As You've Never Seen It Before

The release of the new Coco Chanel biopic, Coco Avant Chanel, has reignited interest in the romance, glamour and history of the city of Paris.

ow a new photographic exhibition will delve beneath the city's surface to explore and challenge what people think they know - or remember - about one of the world's best documented and most revered places.

Curator of the " Remembering Paris" exhibition, Leonard Janiszewski, said he and co-curator Gina Hammond would use photographs and a video installation by Maria Miranda and Norie Neumark to investigate a "city full of memories".

" Paris is a city within a city - the old within the new - and it's built on layer upon layer of memory," Janiszewski said. "Our aim is to explore how we construct memories using our emotions and what we know of history. Often we find that the ideas we've constructed using those memories are actually artificial."

Photographs of grandiose Parisian architecture and streetscapes taken by Nathalie Hartog-Gautier and Juliana O'Dean will be juxtaposed with images of the city during World War II to evoke and challenge the viewer's memories and emotional responses.

Alongside them will sit works by photographer Adam Geczy, who has chosen the ‘Grumpy Old Men of Paris' for his muse. The men in Geczy's images are captured strolling, sitting and reading in some of Paris' most beautiful and well-known locations.

"In many cases the men are alone and surrounded by a silent, lonely and melancholy space," Geczy said of his photographs. "The heroism is all but lost and the eyes have closed or stare into the distance in a reverie about the past."

"Remembering Paris" is a free exhibition and will be on display at the Macquarie University Art Gallery from Thursday, 16 July to Friday, 14 August. The following free public lectures will be held at the gallery to coincide with the exhibition:

• "Remembering Paris" : Curator's Eyeview

Wednesday, 29 July, 10.30am

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• Artist Talk: Nathalie Hartog-Gautier ("Image, Place and Identity")

Thursday, 6 August, 10.30am (during Diversity Week)

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• Artist Talk: Juliana O'Dean ("A Vision of Two Rivers")

Wednesday, 12 August, 1pm

Leonard Janiszewski is a curator at the Macquarie University Art Gallery and an Honorary Associate with Macquarie University's Department of Modern History.

For further information, contact:
Macquarie University Art Galleryphone: (02) 9850-7437
 
Any enquiries from the media should be directed to:
Samantha Norris; phone: (02) 9850-9658
email address: samantha.norris@pru.mq.edu.au

Contact: Samantha Norris

Phone: (02) 9850-9658