Clément Chéroux (born 1970) is a French photography historian and curator. He is Chief Curator of Photography at the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

in New York City. He has also held senior curatorial positions at the

Centre Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou ( en, National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of ...

in Paris and at the

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and was ...

. Chéroux has overseen many exhibitions and books on photographers and photography. He has been awarded the

Prix Nadar The Prix Nadar is an annual prize awarded for a photography book edited in France. The prize was created in 1955 by Association Gens d'Images and is awarded by a jury of photojournalists and publishing experts. The prize is named after Nadar, t ...

(with

Quentin Bajac Quentin Bajac (born 1965) is a French museum curator and art historian specialising in the history of photography. He is the director of the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume in Paris. Bajac has held positions at the Musée d'Orsay (1995–2003) ...

) and a

Royal Norwegian Order of Merit The Royal Norwegian Order of Merit (Norwegian: ''Den Kongelige Norske Fortjenstorden'' (Bokmål) or ''Den Kongelege Norske Fortenesteordenen'' (Nynorsk)) was instituted by King Olav V in 1985. It is awarded to foreigners, Norwegian citizens livin ...

(Knight).

Early life and education

Chéroux was born in

Vélizy-Villacoublay Vélizy-Villacoublay () is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France in north-central France. It is located in the south-western suburbs of Paris from the center and east of Versailles. Its inhabitants are called Véliziens. ...

, in the south-western suburbs of Paris. He earned a degree from the (national school of photography) in Arles and a PhD in art history from the University of Paris I, Panthéon-Sorbonne, Paris.

Life and work

For ten years Chéroux taught

history of photography The history of photography began in remote antiquity with the discovery of two critical principles: camera obscura image projection and the observation that some substances are visibly altered by exposure to light. There are no artifacts or de ...

at the University of Paris I, the

University of Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis Paris 8 University Vincennes-Saint-Denis (french: Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis) is a public university in Paris, France. Once part of the historic University of Paris, it is now an autonomous public institution. It is one of the th ...

, and the

University of Lausanne The University of Lausanne (UNIL; french: links=no, Université de Lausanne) in Lausanne, Switzerland was founded in 1537 as a school of Protestant theology, before being made a university in 1890. The university is the second oldest in Switzer ...

. From 1998 he was executive editor of the magazine '. From 2007 to 2012 he was Curator and from 2013 to 2016 Chief Curator of Photography at the

in Paris. From 2017 to 2020 he was Senior Curator of Photography at the

, San Francisco, California. Since 2020 he has been the Joel and Anne Ehrenkranz Chief Curator of Photography at the

in New York City.

Publications

*''L'Expérience photographique d'August Strindberg: du naturalisme au sur-naturalisme''. 1994. . *''Fautographie, petite histoire de l'erreur photographique''. Yellow Now, 2003. . *''Fotografie und Geschichte''. With Ilsen About. Leipzig:

Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig The Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst (HGB) or Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig is one of the oldest art schools in Germany, dating back to 1764. The school has four colleges specializing in fine arts, graphic design, photography and new media a ...

, 2004. *''The Perfect Medium: Photography and the Occult''. Yale University Press, 2005. . *''Henri Cartier-Bresson: le tir photographique''.

Découvertes Gallimard (, ; in United Kingdom: ''New Horizons'', in United States: ''Abrams Discoveries'') is an editorial collection of illustrated monographic books published by the Éditions Gallimard in pocket format. The books are concise introductions to pa ...

. Gallimard, 2008. . *''La photographie qui fait mouche''. Paris: Librairie Serge Plantureux, 2009. *''Diplopie, l'image photographique à l'ère des médias globalisés: essai sur le 11 septembre 2001''. le Point du Jour, 2009. . *''La Subversion des images, surréalism, photographie, film''. Pompidou Centre, 2009. With

. . *''Shoot!: Existential Photography''. Revolver, 2010. With Florian Ebner. . *''Ombres portées''. Paris: Centre Pompidou, 2011. *''L'Immagine come punto interrogativo o il valore estatico del documento surrealista''. Milan: Johan & Levi, 2012. *''Vernaculaires, essais d'histoire de la photographie'' Cherbourg: le Point du Jour, 2013. *''Henri Cartier-Bresson: Ici et maintenant''. Paris: Centre Pompidou, 2013. Published on the occasion of an exhibition at the Centre Pompidou, 2014. **''Henri Cartier-Bresson: Here and Now''. Thames & Hudson, 2014. . *''Avant l'avant-garde, du jeu en photographie''. Paris: Textuel, 2015. *''Magnum Manifesto''. Thames & Hudson, 2017. . *''Walker Evans''. Prestel, 2017. . *''Si la vue vaut d'être vécue, miscellanées photographiques'' (2019) *''Louis Stettner: Traveling Light''. Cernunnos, 2019. . *''La Voix du voir: Les grands entretiens de la Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson'' = the voice of seeing: the major talks of the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation. Paris: Xavier Barral, 2019. .

Exhibitions curated

*''Shoot!'', Rencontres d'Arles, Arles, France, 2010. Curated by Chéroux,

Martin Parr Martin Parr (born 23 May 1952) is a British documentary photographer, photojournalist and photobook collector. He is known for his photographic projects that take an intimate, satirical and anthropological look at aspects of modern life, in p ...

Erik Kessels Erik Kessels (1966) is a Dutch artist, designer and curator with a particular interest in photography, and co-founder of KesselsKramer, an advertising agency in Amsterdam. Kessels and Johan Kramer established the "legendary and unorthodox" Kessels ...

Joan Fontcuberta Joan Fontcuberta (born 24 February 1955)Joan Fontcuberta - biography.
N ...

, and

Joachim Schmid Joachim Schmid is a Berlin-based artist who has worked with found photography since the early 1980s. Life and career Schmid studied Visual Communication at Fachhochschule für Gestaltung Schwäbisch Gmünd and Berlin University of the Arts fro ...

. *''From Here On'', Rencontres d'Arles, Arles, France, 2011 *''Edvard Munch, l'Oeil Moderne'', Pompidou Centre, Paris, 2011/2012; Tate Modern, London, 2012 *''Paparazzi! Photographers, Stars and Artists'', Pompidou Centre, Paris, 2014 *''Henri Cartier-Bresson'', Pompidou Centre, Paris, 2014 *''Louis Stettner: Here and There'', Pompidou Centre, Paris, 2016; ''Louis Stettner: Traveling Light'', San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California. Curated by Chéroux and Julie Jones.

Awards

*2009:

with

for the book ''La Subversion des images, surréalism, photographie, film'' *2015:

(Knight), for the exhibition ''Edvard Munch, the Modern Eye''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chéroux, Clément 21st-century French historians People associated with the Museum of Modern Art (New York City) Historians of photography Photography curators French art historians French art curators University of Lausanne faculty Living people 1970 births