le mag Bel Œil

…a new photography exhibition at Bel Œil in Nice, in a partnership with de l’air magazine!

For some thirty years, Anne Favret and Patrick Manez have been interweaving their photographic body of work, from exhibitions to publications, pursuing their exploration of inhabited landscapes: their territories, histories, and uses.

The lock-down in March 2020 – the first in a long series that would last more than a year and 129 days – obligated them to reinvent their approach in that space reduced to a one-kilometer radius and, for a time, restricted by curfews. Leaving behind their large-format camera for a small digital device, the duo set about taking photographs daily within their authorised perimeter.

This chronicle is neither a lock-down journal nor a documentary. It is a description of the city, Nice, where they live and teach. Confined to the north of the city, Anne Favret and Patrick Manez photographically revisited their landscape. Though familiar, it appeared different – almost unrecognisable – to them from the first day of the lockdown.

This unusual urban exploration, presented in the book L’aire de rien (2022, published by de l’air), consists of 129 photographs narrated by the philosopher Bruce Béglot. Twenty-four prints are showcased at this exhibition, to be held at Bel Œil with the collaboration of de l’air magazine. They represent twenty-four urban details of a living puzzle that the photographers painstakingly and poetically assembled day after day.

We thank Stéphane Brasca and his magazine de l’air, for bringing this fabulous exhibition to Bel Œil in Nice!