Lise Sarfati (born 1958) is a French photographer and artist. She is noted for her photographs of elusive characters, often young, who resist any attempt to being pinned down. Her work particularly explores the instability of feminine identity. Most recently, Sarfati’s photographs have focused on the relationship between individuals and the urban landscape. She has extensively worked in Russia and the United States.

Life and work

Born in Oran, French Algeria, and of

Pieds-Noir The ''Pieds-Noirs'' (; ; ''Pied-Noir''), are the people of French and other European descent who were born in Algeria during the period of French rule from 1830 to 1962; the vast majority of whom departed for mainland France as soon as Alger ...

descent, Sarfati spent her childhood in

Nice Nice ( , ; Niçard: , classical norm, or , nonstandard, ; it, Nizza ; lij, Nissa; grc, Νίκαια; la, Nicaea) is the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative c ...

, France, which whe credits as having inspired her sensitivity about colour in her work. She became interested in Russian culture and society following a holiday to the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

aged 15. She graduated with an MA in Russian Studies from the

Sorbonne Sorbonne may refer to: * Sorbonne (building), historic building in Paris, which housed the University of Paris and is now shared among multiple universities. *the University of Paris (c. 1150 – 1970) *one of its components or linked institution, ...

in 1979. In 1986, she became the official photographer for the

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 ...

. From 1989 to 1998, she lived in the Soviet Union and then Russia, capturing the atmosphere of a country in transition. Her images of urban ruins and young people in their interior spaces resulted in her first major body of work, ''Acta Est'' (2000) published by Phaidon. The series’ poetic approach set itself apart from the categories of

travelogue Travelogue may refer to: Genres * Travel literature, a record of the experiences of an author travelling * Travel documentary A travel documentary is a documentary film, television program, or online series that describes travel in general or t ...

and photo-journalistic essay, conjuring a richly layered world at the edge of reality and fiction In 2003, she travelled across the United States photographing adolescents in cities such as Austin (TX) Asheville (NC), Portland (OR), New Orleans (LO), Berkeley, Oakland and Los Angeles (CA). The title of this series ''La Vie Nouvelle'' (2005) is inspired by ''La vita nova'' of Dante Alighieri. The book is published by Twin Palms Publishers. Her subsequent American projects ''Austin, Texas'' (2008), ''On Hollywood'' (2010) and ''She'' (2012) further explore her interests on

psychogeography Psychogeography is the exploration of urban environments that emphasizes interpersonal connections to places and arbitrary routes. It was developed by members of the Letterist International and Situationist International, which were revolutiona ...

, feminine identity, and the everyday. With ''Oh Man'' (2017), a series of richly detailed tableaux depicting lonesome men walking in downtown Los Angeles, Sarfati departed from her accustomed

35mm format 135 film, more popularly referred to as 35 mm film or 35 mm, is a format of photographic film used for still photography. It is a film with a film gauge of loaded into a standardized type of magazine – also referred to as a casse ...

, opting for a 4x5

view camera A view camera is a large-format camera in which the lens forms an inverted image on a ground-glass screen directly at the film plane. The image is viewed and then the glass screen is replaced with the film, and thus the film is exposed to exact ...

. This slower image-making process enabled her to enlarge the space for contemplation and invite the viewer to explore what is hidden in these deceptively simple images. One of her photographs from this series was selected as the official visual of

Paris Photo Paris Photo is an annual international art fair dedicated to photography. It was founded in 1997, and is held in November at the Grand Palais exhibition hall and museum complex, located at the Champs-Élysées in the 8th arrondissement in Par ...

2017. Critic

Sean O'Hagan Sean O'Hagan (born 1959) is an Irish singer, songwriter, and arranger who leads the avant-pop band the High Llamas, which he founded in 1992. He is also known for being one half of the songwriting duo (with Cathal Coughlan) in Microdisney and f ...

, writing in

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

, said, “Sarfati's photographs, though deceptively simple on first viewing, have a mysterious quality that is to do, in part, with her deft merging of portraiture, snapshot and arranged tableau”. Sarfati has been awarded the Prix Niepce (1996) and I CP Infinity Award (1996). Between 1996 and 2011, Sarfati was a member of

Magnum Photos Magnum Photos is an international photographic cooperative owned by its photographer-members, with offices in New York City, Paris, London and Tokyo. It was founded in 1947 in Paris by photographers Robert Capa, David Seymour (photographer), Davi ...

. Sarfati is currently represented b
Rose Gallery
in Los Angeles.

Influence

Cinematographer Sam Levy has cited Sarfati’s work as inspiration for the look of

Greta Gerwig Greta Celeste Gerwig (; born August 4, 1983) is an American actress, screenwriter, and director. She first garnered attention after working on and appearing in several mumblecore films. Between 2006 and 2009, she appeared in a number of films b ...

’s

Oscar Oscar, OSCAR, or The Oscar may refer to: People * Oscar (given name), an Irish- and English-language name also used in other languages; the article includes the names Oskar, Oskari, Oszkár, Óscar, and other forms. * Oscar (Irish mythology), ...

-nominated film '' Lady Bird'' (2017)

Exhibitions

* Galerie Particulière (Paris Photo), Paris, France, 2017. * Centro Italiano per la Fotografia, Torino, Italy, 2016. * Los Angeles County Museum of Art LACMA, Los Angeles, USA, 2014. * Yossi Milo Gallery, New York, USA, 2012. * Brancolini Grimaldi Gallery London, UK, 2012. * Rose Gallery, Santa Monica, CA, USA, 2012. * Fotografins Hus, Stockholm, Sweden, 2009. *

La Maison Rouge La Maison Rouge was a private contemporary art Foundation dedicated mainly to showing private art collections, monographic shows of contemporary artists' work. It was located close to the Bastille, in Paris, at 10 Boulevard de la Bastille in the 12 ...

, Paris, France, 2008. * Center of Contemporary Art Vinzavod, Moscow, Russia, 2008. * FOAM Fotografiemuseum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2007. *

Aberdeen Art Gallery Aberdeen Art Gallery is the main visual arts exhibition space in the city of Aberdeen, Scotland. It was founded in 1884 in a building designed by Alexander Marshall Mackenzie, with a sculpture court added in 1905. In 1900, it received the art ...

, Aberdeen, Scotland, 2007. * Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie, Arles, France, 2006. * Nicolaj Center of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2006. * Museo de San Telmo, San Sebastian, Spain, 2005. * The Photographer’s Gallery, London, UK, 2005. * Domus Artium Centro del Arte, Salamanca, Spain, 2004. *

Maison Européenne de la Photographie The Maison Européenne de la Photographie (MEP; European house of photography), located in the historic heart of Paris, is a center for contemporary photographic art opened in February 1996. Location and activities The Hotel Henault de Cantobre, ...

, Paris, France, 2002. *

Centre National de la Photographie The Centre national de la photographie is a French association managed by the Ministry of Culture, dedicated to photography and contemporary art. In 2004 it merged with the "Patrimoine photographique" to create the association of the Galerie natio ...

, Paris, France, 1996.

Monographs

*
Oh Man
'. Germany,

Steidl Steidl is a German-language publisher, an international publisher of photobooks, and a printing company, based in Göttingen, Germany. It was started in 1968 by Gerhard Steidl and is still run by him. Overview The company was started by Gerha ...

, 2017. . Essay by

David Campany David Campany (born 8 October 1967) is a British writer, curator, artist and educator, working mainly with photography. He has written and edited books; contributed essays and reviews to other books, journals, magazines and websites; curated pho ...

*
She
'. Santa Fe, Twin Palms, 2012. . * ''Fashion Magazine: Lise Sarfati: Austin, Texas''. New York, Magnum, 2008. . Essay by

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) ...

. *
The New Life
'. Santa Fe, Twin Palms, 2005. . * ''Acta Est''. Phaidon, 2007. . Essay by Olga Medvedkova.

Collections

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 ...

, Paris, France *

LACMA The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Page Museum). LACMA was founded in 1961, ...

, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA, USA * SFMOMA, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA, USA *

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown H ...

, NY, USA *

De Young Museum The de Young Museum, formally the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, is a fine arts museum located in San Francisco, California. Located in Golden Gate Park, it is a component of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, along with the Legion of Honor ...

, San Francisco, CA, USA * Pier 24, San Francisco, CA, USA * Bard Hessel Museum of Art,

Bard College Bard College is a private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. The campus overlooks the Hudson River and Catskill Mountains, and is within the Hudson River Historic ...

, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, USA * Santa Barbara Museum of Art, CA, USA * Bruce and Nancy Berman Collection, Los Angeles, CA, USA *

Harry Ransom Center The Harry Ransom Center (until 1983 the Humanities Research Center) is an archive, library and museum at the University of Texas at Austin, specializing in the collection of literary and cultural artifacts from the Americas and Europe for the pur ...

, University of Texas at Austin, TX, USA *

Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMoA) is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at the northwest end of the Benjamin Fr ...

, USA *

Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art is an art museum in Kansas City, Missouri, known for its encyclopedic collection of art from nearly every continent and culture, and especially for its extensive collection of Asian art. In 2007, ''Time'' magaz ...

, MO, USA *

, Paris, France *

Bibliothèque Nationale de France The Bibliothèque nationale de France (, 'National Library of France'; BnF) is the national library of France, located in Paris on two main sites known respectively as ''Richelieu'' and ''François-Mitterrand''. It is the national repository ...

, Paris, France * Fonds National d’Art Contemporain, Paris, France * Musée Nicéphore Niépce, Chalon-sur-Saône, France * Fondation Neuflize Vie, Paris, France * Domus Artium, Salamanca, Spain * Fondation Enrique Ordóñez, Spain * Wilson Centre for Photography, London, UK * Sir

Elton John Sir Elton Hercules John (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight; 25 March 1947) is a British singer, pianist and composer. Commonly nicknamed the "Rocket Man" after his 1972 hit single of the same name, John has led a commercially successful career a ...

’s Collection, UK

References

External links

Official Website

Rose Gallery

Sarfati interview with Paris Photo (2017)

Sarfati interview with Sean O’Hagan (2012)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sarfati, Lise French photographers 1958 births Living people French women photographers Magnum photographers People from Nice People from Oran Portrait photographers Pieds-Noirs Women photojournalists