Cyril Perrin was our photographer of the month back in January 2007. Now, a famous Montparnasse café is showing his work…

Savoir laisser une trace (détail). Cyril Perrin


You may have already seen Cyril Perrin’s online gallery here on our site. His photo for us is in the running for the 2008 Hôtels Paris Rive Gauche photo prize (A hotel photo, an artist’ view) and will be shown during our exhibition at the Théâtre de l’Odéon starting 7th October 2008 (full details here).

Of course, Cyril is still continuing with his passion for photography, as his latest exhibition “Errance Polonaise” shows. Running for the whole of September 2008, it is at the Select, a Montparnasse café/bar with a long artistic history: founded in 1923 it used to be a favourite haunt of Picasso, Henry Miller, Ernest Hemingway and Jean Marais. Here’s what Cyril has to say about the exhibition…

Why Poland?
Above all, it’s the country of my ancestors.

Why did you go there?
It all started with the death of my Polish grandfather in 2006, which led me to go and discover the country in order to get back to my Polish roots there.

Have you only been once?
Twice. Once in December 2006, once in June 2007. Two opportunities to take different photos of the country of my ancestors.

Why this exhibition?
I came back from my voyage with 1,000 photos and wanted to show them differently, like a newspaper, like the photos that I sent every day during my trip. In September 2007, the town of St. Dizier was looking for material for a multimedia exhibition about Poland the following December. The exhibition of forty photos, “Errance Polonaise”, came from that, mixing photos of people with other less specific shots, more disconnected from time and space. Each of the forty photos, enlarged to 60x80cm, is accompanied by a sentence, sometimes enigmatic, sometimes factual, like a free association of ideas.

Why the Select?
I did an exhibition there in 2003 on one of my previous themes, urban details. By chance, I had these new photos of Poland when Mr. Alain contacted me at the beginning of 2008.

Here’s the poster for the exhibition. An online presentation of the photos can be seen here.


Bigger map here