Éric Poitevin's Photographic Paradox at Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dôle

The exhibition at Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dôle (June 26–September 30, 2003) presented Éric Poitevin's photographs from 1985 to 2003, including early social documentary images of a brass band and WWI survivors, alongside recent forest and marshland works. The show was structured across two floors: the ground floor featured large, complex, humid nature photographs, while the third floor offered more frontal compositions. Poitevin's work explores the paradox of photography—manifesting the physical texture of the world while emphasizing its flat, dead nature. A key work, a 2002 bust of a young girl with long blond hair against a gray background, was displayed on a major wall, prompting a face-to-face encounter that strips away psychology and aestheticization. The accompanying book replaces the artist's biography with just his birth year and place (1961, Mangiennes, France, where he lives and works), signaling a focus on intensive exploration of materiality rather than diversity of subjects.