Viva, a photographic agency

This exhibition retraces the history and explores the singularity of the Viva photographic agency (1972-82) through a selection of 150 images corresponding to highlights in the life of the agency and the careers of its members.

Viva was founded by eight photographers from France's May '68 generation (Alain Dagbert, Martine Franck, Hervé Gloaguen, François Hers, Richard Kalvar, Jean Lattes, Guy Le Querrec, Claude Dityvon). Conceived as a community, like its august elder, Magnum, it looked to the formula of the cooperative. A grouping of authors and artists more than a press agency, Viva was noted for its production of images that, with their mixture of immediacy and illustration, in-depth reporting and more creative approaches, conveyed a certain distance with regard to events. Viva supplied autonomous, structured work in which its members' individual aesthetics went hand in hand with social, moral and political engagement.

This is the first retrospective looking at the Viva group as an artist's collective and avant-garde agency.

Pressetext

Viva, a photographic agency

Viva  (Alain Dagbert, Martine Franck, Herve Gloaguen, François Hers, Richard Kalvar, Jean Lattes, Guy Le Querrec, Claude Dityvon)