The Rencontres de la photographie

Once again this year,Montmajour Abbey is hosting two photography exhibitions as part of the Rencontres de la Photographie.

In the refectory , we invite you to discover the exhibition"Eileen Gray / Le Corbusier [E-1027+123]" by French photographer Stéphane Couturier, and in the chapter house, immerse yourself in the work of photographer Patrick Wack with his exhibition"Azov Horizons".

Eileen Gray / Le Corbusier [E-1027+123], Stéphane Couturier

Known for his famous frontal views of architecture and his Melting pot series, which combines views of Toyota factories and iconic buildings, Stéphane Couturier 's new series questions the notion of the synthesis of the arts by associating the two figures who left their mark on this villa: Eileen Gray and Le Corbusier.

It was in 1926 that Irish designer Eileen Gray and architect Jean Badovici conceived of this project as an architectural manifesto. Following a code combining their respective names (E for Eileen, 10 for Jean's J, the tenth letter of the alphabet, 2 for Badovici's B, 7 for Gray's G), the villa was christened E-1027.

Ten years after its completion, the incredible history of the place began to take shape. In 1938 and 1939, Le Corbusier was invited by Jean Badovici to paint some of the walls, in an experimental move that broke away from the original spirit.

Today, thanks to photography, Stéphane Couturier is able to merge the eras, giving pride of place to the interplay of transparencies and the telescoping of architecture with nature outside, with Le Corbusier's frescoes blending with the details of the furniture designed by Eileen Gray.

The duality that emerges makes it possible to complexify the layers of reality, to express this new reality of the world and of things: movement, instability, the ephemeral, between document and fiction. The Villa Eileen Gray becomes osmosis: E-1027+123 (12 for Le's L and 3 for Corbusier's C).

By fusing a photograph of Eileen Gray's architecture with one of the murals Le Corbusier painted in the villa, we are invited to a kind of ' reconciliation of the arts '.

- Villa E-1027

It is sometimes wrongly said that the villa was built solely by Eilenn Gray, but she clearly states in autobiographical notes that it was built in collaboration with the architect Jean Badovici, who notably patented the prototype of the "fenêtre paravent" sliding window.

The"house by the sea"on the bay of Roquebrune is a manifesto of their innovative approach, both to furniture and décor, and to architecture, combining openness and compactness. It was also one of the first concrete buildings to apply the principles of modernism. Completed in 1929, the villa was quickly recognised as a singular work of the modern movement.

The name E-1027is a code formed from the initials of Eileen Gray and Jean Badovici: E for Eileen, 10 for Jean's J, 2 for Badovici's B, 7 for Gray's G.

In 1932, Eileen Gray stopped using the villa to build her own house just north of Menton, called "Tempe a Pailla". Revisiting the original minimalist project , Jean Badovici invited Le Corbusier to create several murals. Today, only four of them are still visible.

Villa E 1027 is inextricably linked with Le Corbusier's nearby restaurant-buvette "L'Etoile de Mer ", Cabanon and Camping Units . These monuments bear witness to an architectural adventure as much as a human one, made up ofexperiments and friendships as much as a shared passion for this land. The entire site, owned by the Conservatoire du Littoral, is managed by the Centre des monuments nationaux.

To find out more about Villa E-1027 and the other monuments that make up Cap Moderne, visit their website .

Azov Horizon, Patrick Wack

The Sea of Azov appeared to me in a burst of light. It was this very special light, soft and colourful, that guided my first steps on the shores of this little sister of the Black Sea, to which I've been returning every summer since 2019. It is these gradations of horizon, which are at odds with our visual imagination of these regions, that I promised myself I would photograph, year after year in Ukraine and Russia, like a formal thread guiding my steps. But this summer story, which I had hoped would be luminous, is also the chronicle of a world that is disappearing, devoured by the war that was about to break out. By 2019, the region was already a zone of intense friction. Fighting had been raging for five years in the Donbass, Crimea had been annexed, and the Sea of Azov was de facto occupied by the Russian navy. The visual sweetness I found on these peaceful shores contrasted strangely with the rising evil. A world was on the precipice of history. This is the fundamental ambiguity that this series conveys: that under the beach the fury rumbles and the shells lie, shattering people. It is three years since Ukraine lost its Azov horizons, and few Ukrainians still harbour the hope of ever seeing them again. Influenced by the American tradition of road photography, the series favours the diversions and the wander, rather than the journalistic approach, in order to give the territory and its singularities, rather than the event, the upper hand in the narrative. The story is built up over a series of long stays each year, allowing the story to unfold in all its complexity. These images take us back to the roots and the visible traces of this war, behind the scenes of an unthinkable horror on European soil. I hope that they whisper to our consciences that what we take for granted is not immutable.

There are many more trips to come: I can't imagine a summer without Ukraine.