Michel Vanden Eeckhoudt — Vanden Eeckhoudt
Exhibition from 18 May to 11 June 2023
Chapelle du Quartier Haut,
2-10 Rue Borne, 34200 Sète
Free entrance
Michel Vanden Eeckhoudt used to take his children to the zoo, and that’s how he started to photograph the animals, to capture their distressed looks, their human attitudes, this wild and unhappy world.
His aim was not to denounce but perhaps to make people think. He transformed his animals into fables. We can speak of poetry, of surrealism too, it’s his Belgian side.
He used to say: “Photography is very simple, either you have seen or you have not seen. You have to be there, to have seen, to have captured and captured well. A successful photograph is a small miracle where chance played a big role. You have to put the odds on your side: be in the right place at the right time, camera in hand, good shoes on your feet, you go hunting for butterflies and you make chance your ally.
His work is often treated with humour. For Michel Vanden Eeckhoudt, every moment has two facets, sadness and joy, happiness and unease.
He used to say: “When you feel happy, the clouds are never far away.”
Bittersweet (Doux-amer), like the title of his last book published just before he was diagnosed with cancer, which took his life in 2015.
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Hôtel Paul Delaroche
58 rue Saint Lazare, 75009 Paris
+33 1 53 01 85 85
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