Valérie Jouve

The Galerie Xippas Geneva is delighted to present an exhibition by the french artist Valérie Jouve. On this occasion, she will present a set of works from the series Façades, Paysages and Personnages.
Photographer and filmmaker, Valérie Jouve tirelessly browses the city in search of its inhabitants. Observer of the urban landscape - a recurring theme in her approach - she captures a singular space in a particular time, questioning our way to look at things and perceive them. In a vision which aims to be close to the documentary tradition, the photographic work of Valérie Jouve has developed two entities: humans and landscapes, and more generally the city and its outskirts. Each image is constructed around the notion of an encounter between bodies, whether they are individuals, architectures, or landscape components. It is a moving space, fluctuating and shared that the artist highlights in her photographs. Tight frames and suspended bodies, the characters are neither caricatures nor anecdotal. When Valérie Jouve photographs people, while the image is the pretext for the meeting, in the end, it's the meeting that becomes the pretext for the image. At the same time as the photos testify of a reality, they show its plurality and establish the doubt.
Valérie Jouve was born in Saint-Etienne in 1964. She works and lives in Paris. After studying anthropology, she graduated from l'Ecole nationale supérieure de la photographie d'Arles. Several institutions have organized solo exhibitions of her work: Centre de la photographie contemporain in Lyon (2016), Jeu de Paume in Paris (2015), Fotomuseum in Winterthur (2002). Her movies are programmed in different places and festivals: Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (2015, screening of Traversée), Festival International de Films de Femmes (2013, screening of Time is Working Around Rotterdam) or at the MoMA, in New York (2004, screening of Grand Littoral). Valérie Jouve has also participated to a large number of group exhibitions and her work has been acquired by numerous collections, such as ARC, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; MAC/VAL, Musée d'art Contemporain du Val de Marne; Musée de l'Elysée, Lausanne; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (USA) or Stedeljikmuseum, Amsterdam.