Patrick
Taberna

Patrick Taberna

biography

French photographer, based in Paris (France)

Born in 1964 in St Jean de Luz, Patrick Taberna was attracted to photography from an early age and began his practice during numerous trips to Europe, Asia, the Middle East and the United States, with Nicolas Bouvier’s “L’usage du monde” in his pocket. When he arrived in Paris in 1987, he assiduously attended the 30×40 club led by Jean Luc Lemaitre and Francis Richard.

Patrick Taberna gradually builds a work that merges with his life and that of his family. An existence that would be ordinary if it were not woven with travel and photography.  “What I want is to suggest rather than really show; I like my images to be little seeds sown in people’s heads and for them to blossom in everyone’s head.”

In 1997, he undertakes a postal exhibition: “Passage en Ouest“. Because they gave him a taste for travel and photography, ten people receive 37 photos each, at a rate of one per week. This adventure allowed him to correspond with Bernard Plossu and Robert Frank for instance.

His photography – still linked to travel but more intimate  – then becomes more and more autobiographical and offers images of a past considered without nostalgia, as a richness that enriches the present. ” The visual photography, arts, literature, etc. …: all these are false barriers, there are only images that speak, and others which have nothing to say (some speak because they have nothing to say, with the language as commonplace ? Poetry is not that simple… )(…) This is probably why Patrick Taberna speaks to us, that what counts is not the square or rectangle, or color or black and white, what counts is the fact that these pictures exist because he decided to see them and to take them“(Bernard Plossu about the series Au fil des jours)

Author of two monographs, Patrick Taberna received a mention from Fnac in 2000 for his series “Nord Magnetic“, a prize from Fnac Paris in 2001 for “Nos Italies” and a prize from the HSBC Foundation for Photography in 2004 for “Au fil des jours“. Regularly exhibited throughout the world, and particularly in Japan,  his works have been included in prestigious collections, such as the Collection Agnès b., the Collection François Pinault, and collections of the Centro de Fotografia (Tenerife, Spain), of  French arthothèques, of Musée Nicéphore-Niépce – Fnac deposit (France), and of Maison Européenne de la Photographie (France).

Series

Clément under the same sky, 2018

Serie | Over time, images build a memory, a story. In the ones I gather here, thirteen years separate the first photo from the most recent one. When my son Clément appears in "Arles, 2004", he is 4 years old. He is 17 in "The Hague, 2017". This series is dedicated to him.

Le gout des mandarines, 2011

Serie | Sometimes, memories are linked with five senses. And it is sometimes strange. For me, it would be a sound. Sometimes it is linked with a taste, sometimes with a scent.

Untimely, 2011

Serie | My moments whispered in the ear of the wind and then scattered across the oceans, fade away... And under the waves of oblivion, a foam of memories, alone, unrolls my light life, to the nucleus of dust where nothing has ever existed.

Of sand and wind, 2008

Serie | This series is born of the reading « The greek summer" by Jacques Lacarriere. This book had already led me to several trips to Greece a few years ago without retaining strong images. The sun, the sea, the contemplation were enough to fill our days. We went from an island to another with Sylvie, random encounters and in accordance with our desires.

The transciences, 2005

Serie | "The transciences "(2006), is a series that allows me to mix real and projected childhood images. A great reader of comics when I was a child (and I still do), the drawing was certainly before photography, the first object of my fascination for the image.

Over the days, 2004

Serie | What I feel, seeing those pictures of Patrick Taberna, is that he needs it to live ... We must see to live or live to see? We go from specific locations to vague places, from noise to rustles, from an odor to a sensation, from solitary images to voluntarily poetically grouped together pictures...

Magnetic North, Norway, 1999

Serie | Eyes wide opened on this landscape as on the quite begining of the world and the mind taking off, flying elsewhere, far away, around unknown future, but always coming back, back to this magnetic north, both so inspiring and so sucking in.

Clément under the same sky, 2018

Serie | Over time, images build a memory, a story. In the ones I gather here, thirteen years separate the first photo from the most recent one. When my son Clément appears in "Arles, 2004", he is 4 years old. He is 17 in "The Hague, 2017". This series is dedicated to him.

Le gout des mandarines, 2011

Serie | Sometimes, memories are linked with five senses. And it is sometimes strange. For me, it would be a sound. Sometimes it is linked with a taste, sometimes with a scent.

Untimely, 2011

Serie | My moments whispered in the ear of the wind and then scattered across the oceans, fade away... And under the waves of oblivion, a foam of memories, alone, unrolls my light life, to the nucleus of dust where nothing has ever existed.

Of sand and wind, 2008

Serie | This series is born of the reading « The greek summer" by Jacques Lacarriere. This book had already led me to several trips to Greece a few years ago without retaining strong images. The sun, the sea, the contemplation were enough to fill our days. We went from an island to another with Sylvie, random encounters and in accordance with our desires.

The transciences, 2005

Serie | "The transciences "(2006), is a series that allows me to mix real and projected childhood images. A great reader of comics when I was a child (and I still do), the drawing was certainly before photography, the first object of my fascination for the image.

Over the days, 2004

Serie | What I feel, seeing those pictures of Patrick Taberna, is that he needs it to live ... We must see to live or live to see? We go from specific locations to vague places, from noise to rustles, from an odor to a sensation, from solitary images to voluntarily poetically grouped together pictures...

Magnetic North, Norway, 1999

Serie | Eyes wide opened on this landscape as on the quite begining of the world and the mind taking off, flying elsewhere, far away, around unknown future, but always coming back, back to this magnetic north, both so inspiring and so sucking in.

Clément under the same sky, 2018

Serie | Over time, images build a memory, a story. In the ones I gather here, thirteen years separate the first photo from the most recent one. When my son Clément appears in "Arles, 2004", he is 4 years old. He is 17 in "The Hague, 2017". This series is dedicated to him.

Le gout des mandarines, 2011

Serie | Sometimes, memories are linked with five senses. And it is sometimes strange. For me, it would be a sound. Sometimes it is linked with a taste, sometimes with a scent.

Untimely, 2011

Serie | My moments whispered in the ear of the wind and then scattered across the oceans, fade away... And under the waves of oblivion, a foam of memories, alone, unrolls my light life, to the nucleus of dust where nothing has ever existed.

Of sand and wind, 2008

Serie | This series is born of the reading « The greek summer" by Jacques Lacarriere. This book had already led me to several trips to Greece a few years ago without retaining strong images. The sun, the sea, the contemplation were enough to fill our days. We went from an island to another with Sylvie, random encounters and in accordance with our desires.

The transciences, 2005

Serie | "The transciences "(2006), is a series that allows me to mix real and projected childhood images. A great reader of comics when I was a child (and I still do), the drawing was certainly before photography, the first object of my fascination for the image.

Over the days, 2004

Serie | What I feel, seeing those pictures of Patrick Taberna, is that he needs it to live ... We must see to live or live to see? We go from specific locations to vague places, from noise to rustles, from an odor to a sensation, from solitary images to voluntarily poetically grouped together pictures...

Magnetic North, Norway, 1999

Serie | Eyes wide opened on this landscape as on the quite begining of the world and the mind taking off, flying elsewhere, far away, around unknown future, but always coming back, back to this magnetic north, both so inspiring and so sucking in.

Interviews

Regardez voir
France Inter
—
Interview by Brigitte Patient, 2017

On the occasion of its exhibition “L’arrière-saison”, France Inter dedicates its column “Regardez Voir” to the photographer Patrick Taberna.

Listen

L’Atelier
France Inter
—
Interview by Vincent Josse, 2012

After his exhibition, “A contretemps”, France Inter devotes a programme to Patrick Taberna.
A girl in profile dancing on a parquet floor with light as her partner, a giant tree that contrasts with the tiny body of a child, misty windows where an unknown hand has drawn two little fish. Patrick Taberna seizes fragments and moments that each of us has to decipher and complete.

Listen

books

Nos vies partagées

Éditions Contrejour

Le goût des mandarines

Caillou bleu - 2012

Au fil des jours

Actes Sud - 2004

Nos vies partagées

Éditions Contrejour

Le goût des mandarines

Caillou bleu - 2012

Au fil des jours

Actes Sud - 2004

Nos vies partagées

Éditions Contrejour

Le goût des mandarines

Caillou bleu - 2012

Au fil des jours

Actes Sud - 2004

Awards

HSBC Foundation Winner

For his series ” Days afer day”

2004

Laureate Paris – Attention Talent, FNAC –

For his project: “Nos Italies”

2001

Special Mention – Attention Talent, FNAC –

For his project: “Magnetic North”

2000