Christophe Agou (1969 – September 2015) was a French

documentary photographer Documentary photography usually refers to a popular form of photography used to chronicle events or environments both significant and relevant to history and historical events as well as everyday life. It is typically undertaken as professional pho ...

and

street photographer Street photography (also sometimes called candid photography) is photography conducted for art or enquiry that features unmediated chance encounters and random incidents within public places. Although there is a difference between street and ca ...

who lived in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. His work has been published in books and is held in public collections. He was a member of the In-Public street photography collective.

Biography

Agou was born in Montbrison,

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

in 1969. A self-taught photographer, Agou grew up in a small town in the

Forez Forez is a former province of France, corresponding approximately to the central part of the modern Loire ''département'' and a part of the Haute-Loire and Puy-de-Dôme ''départements''. The final "z" in Forez () is not pronounced in the Loire ...

region, on the eastern side of the

Massif Central The (; oc, Massís Central, ; literally ''"Central Massif"'') is a highland region in south-central France, consisting of mountains and plateaus. It covers about 15% of mainland France. Subject to volcanism that has subsided in the last 10,0 ...

.Exhibition notice
, Clermont-Ferrand city website. From the early 1990s, Agou made documentary-style photographs in both black and white and color which take an allusive approach to the human condition. He also made short films and sculpture. In 1992, he moved to

. He began taking photographs in the streets that evoked a sense of longing and isolation. He made photographs at

Ground Zero In relation to nuclear explosions and other large bombs, ground zero (also called surface zero) is the point on the Earth's surface closest to a detonation. In the case of an explosion above the ground, ''ground zero'' is the point on the groun ...

September 11th, 2001 The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commer ...

, which were used in numerous publications. He first came to prominence with photographs taken in the New York City Subway, published in his book ''Life Below'' (2004). In 2002 Agou returned to Forez. He traveled to the lesser-known parts of the region and got to know a community of family farmers whose identities are deeply rooted to the land. He photographed and filmed them at work and at home for eight years. This resulted in ''Face au Silence'' / ''In the Face of Silence'', a documentary about rural life in early twenty-first century France. The work won him the 2010 European Publishers Award for Photography, and publication in six editions and in six languages. He became a member of the In-Public street photography collective in 2005. Agou died in September 2015 of cancer.

Publications

Publications by Agou

*''Life Below: The New York City Subway.'' New York: Quantuck Lane Press, 2004. . *''Face au Silence.'' Text by

John Berger John Peter Berger (; 5 November 1926 – 2 January 2017) was an English art critic, novelist, painter and poet. His novel '' G.'' won the 1972 Booker Prize, and his essay on art criticism '' Ways of Seeing'', written as an accompaniment to the ...

. **''Face au Silence.'' Arles:

Actes Sud Actes Sud is a French publishing house based in Arles. It was founded in 1978 by author Hubert Nyssen. By 2013, the company, then headed by Nyssen's daughter, Françoise Nyssen, had an annual turnover of 60 million euros and 60 staff members. H ...

, 2010. . **''In the Face of Silence.'' Stockport:

Dewi Lewis Dewi Lewis (born 10 March 1951) is a Welsh publisher and curator of photography. Career In 1975, Lewis was the founding director of the Bury Metropolitan Arts Association which operates the Met. Lewis also founded and was the first director o ...

, 2011. . **''Aπέναντι Στη Σιωπή.'' Apeiron Photos, 2011. . **''Ante el Silencio.'' Barcelona: Lunwerg Editores, 2011. . **''Gesichter der Stille.'' Berlin: Edition Braus, 2011. . **''Di Fronte al Silenzio.'' Rome: Peliti Associati, 2011. . *''Les Faits Secondaires.'' Christophe Agou, 2013. . Texts by Agou and John Berger. Poems by . Edition of 700 copies.

Publications with contributions by Agou

*''10 – 10 Years of In-Public''. London: Nick Turpin Publishing, 2010. . Includes an essay by

Jonathan Glancey Jonathan Glancey, is an architectural critic and writer who was the architecture and design editor at ''The Guardian'', a position he held from 1997 to February 2012. He previously held the same post at ''The Independent''. He also has been invo ...

, "Outlandish Harmony"; a foreword by

Nick Turpin Nick Turpin (born 1969) is a British street photographer and advertising and design photographer. He is based in London and near Lyon, France. Turpin established the first international collective of street photographers, In-Public, in 2000 and ...

; and a chapter each by Agou, Nick Turpin, David Gibson, Richard Bram, Matt Stuart, Andy Morley-Hall,

Trent Parke Trent Parke (born 1971) is an Australian photographer. He is the husband of Narelle Autio, with whom he often collaborates. He has created a number of photography books; won numerous national and international awards including four World Press ...

Narelle Autio Narelle Autio (born 1969) is an Australian photographer. Autio is a member of the In-Public street photography collective and is a founding member of the Oculi photographic agency. She is married to the photographer Trent Parke, with whom she ...

, Jesse Marlow, Adrian Fisk, Nils Jorgensen, Melanie Einzig, Jeffrey Ladd, Amani Willett, Gus Powell, Otto Snoek, Blake Andrews, David Solomons, George Kelly and Paul Russell. *''Photographers' Sketchbooks.'' London: Thames & Hudson, 2014. . Edited by Stephen McLaren and Bryan Formhals. *''100 Great Street Photographs.'' Munich, London, New York:

Prestel Prestel (abbrev. from press telephone), the brand name for the UK Post Office Telecommunications's Viewdata technology, was an interactive videotex system developed during the late 1970s and commercially launched in 1979. It achieved a maxim ...

, 2017. By David Gibson. . Contains a commentary on and a photograph by Agou.

Films

Films by Agou

*''Face au Silence = In the Face of Silence'' (2011).

Films with Agou

*''In-Sight'' (2011). 38-minute documentary directed and edited by

, commissioned by Format for the Format International Photography Festival, Derby, 2011. Includes interviews with Agou, Richard Bram, Melanie Einzig, David Gibson, Jesse Marlow, Gus Powell, Otto Snoek, David Solomons, and Nick Turpin, and shows them at work.

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

*''Face au silence''.

Rencontres d'Arles The Rencontres d’Arles (formerly called ''Rencontres internationales de la photographie d’Arles'') is an annual summer photography festival founded in 1970 by the Arles photographer Lucien Clergue, the writer Michel Tournier and the historia ...

Festival, Arles, France. 18 November 2011 – 21 January 2012.Bénédicte Philippe,
Christophe Agou: Face au silence
, Télérama. *''Face au silence''. Fait & Cause Galerie, Paris, France. 18 November 2011 – 14 January 2012. *''Face au silence''. (MARQ), Clermont-Ferrand, France. 26 January – 29 April 2012.Press release for ''Face au Silence''
(PDF, 27 pp, 432 kB), Clermont-Ferrand city website. *''Face au silence''. Galerie Intervalle, Paris, France. 3 September – 11 October 2014.

Group exhibitions

*''in-public @ 10,'' Photofusion, Brixton, London, 28 May – 9 July 2010. Travelled to Les Ballades Photographiques de Seyssel, Seyssel, France, 12–23 July 2011, where it also included the film ''In-Sight'' (2011) and ''The French'' exhibition by

. Included photographs by In-Public members. *''Street Photography Now,''

Third Floor Gallery Third Floor Gallery was an independent charitable photography gallery in Cardiff Bay, Wales. It opened in 2010 and predominantly featured documentary photography, often premiering new work with the direct involvement of the photographers. It clo ...

, Cardiff, 10 October – 14 November 2010. Photographs from the book '' Street Photography Now'' (2011). *2015: ''The Sharp Eye. In-Public in Mexico,'' Foto Mexico, Cine Tonalá, Mexico City, Mexico, October–November 2015. Slideshow of photographs.

Awards

*1999: Attention Talent Photo Award Fnac *2000: Project Competition - Santa Fe Prize for Photography *2002: Magazine Picture of the Year - Honorable Mention *2002: Ai-AP American Photography Award *2006: W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography - Finalist *2008: Prix de la Photographie de l'

Académie des Beaux-Arts An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, ...

de Paris - Finalist *2009: Prix Kodak de la Critique Photographique - Special Mention *2010: European Publishers Award for Photography - Winner *2012:

CNC Numerical control (also computer numerical control, and commonly called CNC) is the automated control of machining tools (such as drills, lathes, mills, grinders, routers and 3D printers) by means of a computer. A CNC machine processes a p ...

(Centre National du Cinéma et de l'Image Animée). Commission for ''Sans Adieu''.Documentaire: Fonds d'aide à l'innovation audiovisuelle (aide à l'écriture): Résultats de la commission du 17 février 2012
, CNC. *2013: CNC (Centre National du Cinéma et de l'Image Animée)

Collections

Agou's work is held in the following public collections: * La Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, FranceChristophe Agou
", Galerie Intervalle. * (MARQ), Clermont-Ferrand, France * Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX *

Neuberger Museum of Art Neuberger Museum of Art is located in Purchase, New York, United States. It is affiliated with Purchase College, part of the State University of New York system. It is the nation's tenth-largest university museum. The museum is one of 14 sites o ...

, Purchase, NY * Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC * The Akron Art Museum Akron, OH * Southeast Museum of Photography, Daytona, FL * New York Public Library, New York, NY * Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY *

New-York Historical Society The New-York Historical Society is an American history museum and library in New York City, along Central Park West between 76th and 77th Streets, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The society was founded in 1804 as New York's first museum ...

, New York, NY * Fonds national d'art contemporain (FNAC), Paris, France * The Joy of Giving Something, New York, NY

Notes

References

External links

*
Photoeye
{{DEFAULTSORT:Agou, Christophe French photographers Street photographers 1969 births 2015 deaths Documentary photographers People from Montbrison, Loire Deaths from cancer in New York (state)