Emmanuel
Pierrot

Emmanuel Pierrot

biography

Emmanuel Pierrot is a French photographer born in Nancy in 1967.

He received his first camera, a small Kodak, for his eighth birthday. He began his photographic career as a teenager, working in his spare time in the photo department of the daily newspaper La Liberté de l’Est (now Vosges Matin). He deals with many subjects ranging from the news, such as the Grégory affair, car accidents and other Golden Wedding, through the Tour de France, soccer derbies, political life … he sharpens his sensitivity in the treatment and acuity of his eye.

However, he quickly abandons the idea of storytelling, preferring to feed his imagination rather than focus on reality, and develops techniques of construction on a miniature scale. At the age of 20, he obtained his certificate as a companion photographer from the Moselle Chamber of Trades. One of his teachers, Jean-Luc Tartarin, encouraged him to attend numerous lectures by photographers and specialists in visual photography. These encounters, which were decisive, would influence his future choices.

After completing his studies, he moved to New York where he continued to have decisive encounters like William Laxton, Ralph Gibson, Mark Arbeit and James Wojicik with whom he perfected his studio, construction, light and camera training.

Returning to Paris in 1992, he set up his first studio in the well-named rue Daguerre. In 2000, he set up his studio in Saint-Ouen, a veritable toolbox to serve his ambitions.

In the framework of a project called Extra-ordinaire realized with Sundries in 2012, Emmanuel Pierrot has gathered a set of photos taken over the last ten years and in total rupture with his work in the workshop. Through images of everyday life he approaches the idea of the cliché and the stereotypes of photography. However, we find the irony and sensitivity that characterizes all his work.

Emmanuel Pierrot is best known for his still life work, materializing his ideas in the form of plastic constructions. Yet his photographs are not simple still-lives. He tells stories, seeking to reflect the soul of things, always with a touch of lightness and humor.

Series

Behind the mountain, 2020

Series | When the confinement was decreed, Emmanuel Pierrot was in the Hautes Vosges in the family farm behind the Col de la Croix des Moinats, settled in the warmth with three generations under the same roof.

Tu Mitonnes, 2019

Series | "Tu Mitonnes" therefore tells stories that nestle around the corner as well as on the other side of the earth. They are born in cabbages, in the hollow of a watermelon or a Morteau sausage and of course always end with recipes.

Bright Red, 2016

Series | My grandfather, the late Jean Pierrot, was a butcher in the small town of Fraize in the Vosges department in northeastern France.

Thermography, 2012

Series | Emmanuel Pierrot once again finds a way to extract reality from our world to bring us into his own universe.

Crazy Food, 2012

Series | Emmanuel Pierrot plays with food and jostles us as he redefines the way we eat. He cultivates a very personal style, making minced-meat out of marketing guidelines, and heartily topping it off with his caustic sense of humor.

Strange match, 2008

Série | These mixes are strange. They are incongruous, and seem alien to our known realities.

Behind the mountain, 2020

Series | When the confinement was decreed, Emmanuel Pierrot was in the Hautes Vosges in the family farm behind the Col de la Croix des Moinats, settled in the warmth with three generations under the same roof.

Tu Mitonnes, 2019

Series | "Tu Mitonnes" therefore tells stories that nestle around the corner as well as on the other side of the earth. They are born in cabbages, in the hollow of a watermelon or a Morteau sausage and of course always end with recipes.

Bright Red, 2016

Series | My grandfather, the late Jean Pierrot, was a butcher in the small town of Fraize in the Vosges department in northeastern France.

Thermography, 2012

Series | Emmanuel Pierrot once again finds a way to extract reality from our world to bring us into his own universe.

Crazy Food, 2012

Series | Emmanuel Pierrot plays with food and jostles us as he redefines the way we eat. He cultivates a very personal style, making minced-meat out of marketing guidelines, and heartily topping it off with his caustic sense of humor.

Strange match, 2008

Série | These mixes are strange. They are incongruous, and seem alien to our known realities.

Behind the mountain, 2020

Series | When the confinement was decreed, Emmanuel Pierrot was in the Hautes Vosges in the family farm behind the Col de la Croix des Moinats, settled in the warmth with three generations under the same roof.

Tu Mitonnes, 2019

Series | "Tu Mitonnes" therefore tells stories that nestle around the corner as well as on the other side of the earth. They are born in cabbages, in the hollow of a watermelon or a Morteau sausage and of course always end with recipes.

Bright Red, 2016

Series | My grandfather, the late Jean Pierrot, was a butcher in the small town of Fraize in the Vosges department in northeastern France.

Thermography, 2012

Series | Emmanuel Pierrot once again finds a way to extract reality from our world to bring us into his own universe.

Crazy Food, 2012

Series | Emmanuel Pierrot plays with food and jostles us as he redefines the way we eat. He cultivates a very personal style, making minced-meat out of marketing guidelines, and heartily topping it off with his caustic sense of humor.

Strange match, 2008

Série | These mixes are strange. They are incongruous, and seem alien to our known realities.

Interviews

Le Monde de Pierrot
Art Bus
—
2020

The photographer Emmanuel Pierrot exhibits in the ART BUS. This is a travelling exhibition in a bus, which travels through the Vosges territory to meet schoolchildren in geographical areas where the cultural offer is limited. The Art Bus is a device carried for 15 years by the association La Lune en Parachute (The Moon in Parachute) and which reaches about 5000 young people per year.
This year, the artist Emmanuel Pierrot takes us on a journey through the “Pierrot’s world”.

Dans l’atelier d’Emmanuel Pierrot
Sophia Cuffia
—
2015

Video portrait of the photographer Emmanuel Pierrot in his studio in Saint-Ouen.

La Minute Métropole
Conseil d’Architecture d’Urbanisme et de l’Environnement d’Île-de-France
—
2015

Emmanuel Pierrot presents his photographic work through the influence of the location of his studio in the Parisian suburb of Saint-Ouen.

Exhibitions

“De l’image fixe à l’image mouvante”
—
From June 30 to August 30, 2023
—
Fondation du Doute, Promenades Photographiques festival

More information

Books

Extra Ordinaire

Design and Risograph : JH. Sundries - 2011

Extra Ordinaire

Design and Risograph : JH. Sundries - 2011

Extra Ordinaire

Design and Risograph : JH. Sundries - 2011