CNAP is at Paris Photo

The Centre national des arts plastiques (CNAP) joins Paris Photo, from 11 to 14 November 2021 at Grand Palais Ephémère, in supporting practitioners in the field of photography. In doing so, it pursues its mission to accompany and promote the visual arts.

A public institution under the Ministry of Culture, CNAP implements an active policy to support photographers, artists and art professionals through initiatives and programmes that encourage and enable creation in the visual arts, including a mechanism for contemporary documentary photography. Acquisitions and commissions made by CNAP enrich its collections while directly contributing to the art sector economy. Through short-term and long-term loans of works, in addition to exhibition programming, CNAP also gives greater visibility and access to contemporary photography.

During Paris Photo, CNAP will present acquisitions made from the exhibiting galleries. These works, identified as “Acquired by the Centre national des arts plastiques”, are by Laurence Aëgerter, Juliette Agnel, Heather Agyepong, Aassmaa Akhannouch, Arièle Bonzon, Siân Davey, Elsa & Johanna, Maryam Firuzi, Flore, Mikiko Hara, Lebohang Kganye, Mame-Diarra Niang and Mouna Saboni.

“Corpus”

Women artists will be a particular focus through recent acquisitions (2017-2021). “Corpus”, an exhibition curated by Pascal Beausse, head of the CNAP photographic collection, will present the work of seven photographers which consider representations of the body as a vector for emancipation and a means to refuse alienation. These photographers are Florence Chevallier, Hannah Darabi, Farida Hamak, Mouna Karray, Fatima Mazmouz, Edith Roux and Anaëlle Vanel.

“A corpus is not a discourse and it is not a narrative. Hence a corpus is what we would need here. Here, there is a kind of promise that this must be about the body, will be about the body, almost without delay. A kind of promise that is not the subject of a treatise, nor something to be cited and recited, nor the character or the setting of a story. This is, effectively, a kind of promise to stay silent.”
Jean-Luc Nancy

Paris Photo “Conversations”

CNAP is also taking part in the Paris Photo “Conversations”. A round table will be the opportunity to return to the work of two photographers, Aurore Bagarry and Karim Kai, who participated in Regards du Grand Paris — a national photography commission led by CNAP and Ateliers Médicis since 2016 and which will continue until 2026 — ahead of the exhibition that will present the first five editions, at Les Magasins Généraux and in public spaces, from 24 June to 23 October 2022.

The winners of the sixth edition of Regards du Grand Paris will be announced during Paris Photo.

CNAP will also launch the first episode of “Collections sur écoute”, a series of podcasts for discovering works in the CNAP collections from a different angle. The first season is about photography.

Associated exhibiting galleries

Binome, Paris
Françoise Paviot, Paris
James Hyman, London
Esther Woerdehoff, Genève/Paris
Le Réverbère, Lyon
Michael Hoppen, London
La Forest Divonne, Paris
Silk Road, Teheran
Clémentine de la Féronnière, Paris
Miyako Yoshinaga, New York
Afronova, Johannesburg
Stevenson, Johannesburg
127, Marrakesh/Montreuil