Richard Dumas — 24 images-24 portraits de cinéma
Exhibition from 8 November 2025 to 3 March 2026
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Opening on Friday 14 November in the presence of the artist
La Confluence
Place Charles de Gaulle
35830 Betton
24 images projected per second: this is the principle behind the cinematograph, an offshoot of photography, but one with which the arts ultimately have little in common.
This exhibition brings together 24 photographs which, when placed end to end in a cinema, would represent a fleeting second, followed by another. Like music, cinema is an abstract art form.
Unlike a photographic print, a film has no material existence. It is our brain as viewers that allows it to exist. A film is a mental image reminiscent of ancient Chinese painting, which was never shown in its entirety from the front, but in the form of a scroll that was unrolled and rolled up, revealing the motif only through a thin slit. Such paintings had no decorative function and, in a way, foreshadowed the cinematograph in the way they were unrolled.
But cinema is also the dark room where films are projected, a place that allowed me, from my teenage years onwards, to extract myself from society in order to better understand it and project myself into it. A true refuge that deepens one’s view of the world.
The filmmakers Chaplin, Keaton, Lang, Ford, Hitchcock, Antonioni, Lynch and Hawks were my mentors, and their films continue to inspire me. This exhibition of selected photographs is a tribute to the world of cinema that is so dear to my heart, a small window that may allow you to step into my world, and for more than just a second…
Richard Dumas, avril 2025
Over the course of half a century, Stéphane Duroy’s camera has engaged with that portion of humanity who have fallen victim to poverty, war or social determinism. His oeuvre constitutes a unique work of art defying classification.
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