A photographer by trade, Simone Simon has been developing an artistic practice combining photography, video, sound recordings and written testimonials since 2000. Each of his projects is built in a pragmatic way, to render a raw, often poetic reality. Anchored in a social approach, she seeks in the subjects she captures a living testimony, where absence and time weigh sometimes as a threat, sometimes as a hope.
Thus, time seems to have stopped when she photographs industrial districts and disused infrastructures in several European cities, giving light the leading role (Souriez, on se détruit, Ainsi va la lumière). With Les portes du St Pierre (published by Le Passager Clandestin), she meets women in a suburb of Nice as their insalubrious building, already half-abandoned, is about to be destroyed.
Invoking the buried memories of childhood, the cradle of the first emotions, she gathers audio testimonies, bordering on the dreamy (Do not watch the fox go by). In Nostalgie du présent, a nod to the world of Paul Auster, she contrasts children's and adults' faces: "Everything is already inscribed in a child's face.*she observes, and the double portraits she proposes reveal the astonishing resemblance of a face that time cannot alter.
Simone Simon often relies on the participation of anonymous people (Sur le passage de quelques personnes à travers...), and whatever the issue, the images, stories and testimonies speak a common language. The artist highlights mental images, convictions, regrets or dreams, taking the time to listen, with the strong will of not staging anything, but simply seizing a subjective reality in which everyone can find a little of himself and his relationship to others. This was also her approach when she directed the film Boxing-club with Eric Antolinos, shot in a boxing club in the suburbs of Nice. There, she leaves the word free and lingers on the sporting gestures and on the attitudes which make the link between these inhabitants of all the generations and confused communities.
In her current work of photographs and testimonies, CORPS/VOIX territoire de l'intime, she brings together some thirty testimonies of women in their often troubled relationship with their bodies. Posing naked in an intimate setting, these anonymous women assert their desire for freedom: they rise up against cultural diktats and aesthetic codes, often alienating.
Without ever lapsing into pathos, nor claiming any kind of militancy, she nevertheless evokes how people's lives are affected by political decisions of all kinds. Benevolence and slowness make this poetry so particular, where time seems suspended.
Christine Parasote
* Paul Auster in L'invention de la solitude, ed. Actes Sud, 1993
Main exhibitions at the gallery :
Selection of works
2023 Histoire d'eau, Vernissage March 16, 2023, Galerie de l'école des beaux-arts de Versailles, 11 rue St Simon 78000 Versailles, France
2019 CORPS / VOIX Territoires de l'intime, Curratrice Chiara Palermo, Vernissage Friday September 27, 2019 from 6pm, With Presentation and signing of the book NU, Simone Simon, preface by David Le Breton, text by Chiara Palermo, Galerie Eva Vautier, Nice
2017 Ne regardez pas le renard passer, Sound installation, With Gilles Miquelis, Vivre à en crever, Galerie Eva Vautier, Nice, As part of the exhibition, Souvenir, réalité ou fiction?, debate led by Chiara Palermo (curator, doctor of philosophy) and Jean-Pierre Joly (psychiatrist, psychoanalyst), www.eva-vautier.com
2015 Paroles, 7-minute slide show, In collaboration with the women and children residents of the CHRS, Les Yuccas, yuccas.chrs@association-alc.org
2014 Ainsi va la lumière, Guest artist: Joseph Dadoune, www.eva-vautier.com
2011 Souriez, on se détruit, Guest artist: Nicolas Buissart, Villa Cameline, 43 avenue Montplaisir - 06100 Nice, www.villacameline.fr
2009 Les portes du St Pierre, Galerie d'art contemporain Christian Depardieu, www.galerie-depardieu.com
2007 Boxing club, Documentary made in a Nice suburb, directed by Simone Simon and Eric Antolinos, Awarded at Un festival, c'est trop court, Nice April 2008, Archived at the media library of the Musée national de l'histoire de l'immigration, Paris, www.histoire-immigration.fr
2006 Nostalgie du présent, Exhibition of photographs from the book, FNAC, Monaco
2006 Nostalgia for the present, LA STATION Nice, www.lastation.org
2002 Sur le passage de quelques personnes à travers...,"LE DOJO" Nice, www.le-dojo.org
2022 L'ami-e modèle, Curator Mathieu Mercier, Mucem, Marseille, www.mucem.org
2021 Projet Nomade, Based on a project by Charlotte Pringuey-Cessac, Group show, Galerie Eva Vautier, Nice, www.eva-vautier.com, May 21 to June 19 Projet Nomade at Metaxu, espace d'artistes, Toulon, www.metaxu.fr
2020 1 mètre de distance, Group show, Galerie Eva Vautier, Nice, www.eva-vautier.com
2019 Cabinet pique-nique, femmes artistes, Voyage immobile video installation, Curator Jean Dupuy, Maison abandonnée (Villa Cameline), Nice, www.villacameline.fr
2016 Ne regardez pas le renard passer, Sound installation, Supervues, petite surface de l'art contemporain, Hôtel Burrhus, Vaison-la-Romaine, www.burrhus.com
2016 Tribu, Group exhibition, www.eva-vautier.com
2015 Il était une fois..., Sound piece, Hôtel Burrhus, Vaison-la-Romaine, www.burrhus.com
2015 One light year away, Group exhibition, www.eva-vautier.com
2014 Mises en scène, Château-musée Grimaldi, Cagnes-sur-Mer, umamfrance.blogspot.fr
2013 Se dérober..., Group exhibition, Musée de la Photographie André Villers, Mougins, www.mougins.fr
2012/2013 L'art à l'abattoir, Video directed by Simone Simon and Eric Antolinos, Archived at the MAMAC media library, Nice
2011 J'aime les femmes et je le prouve, Group show, curated by Ben, www.ben-vautier.com
2009 Les portes du St Pierre, Rencontres de la photographie, Arles, Hôtel de Chartrouse
Biography
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Sans titre – Simone Simon
60.00 € -
Simone Simon, CAGNES SUR MER
3,600.00 € -
Simone Simon, ICELAND 2
3,600.00 € -
Simone Simon, NU – Book
35.00 € -
Simone Simon, VENCE
3,600.00 €
Works & editions
See all the works of Simone Simon available online
Information request
Artist information request form Simone Simon
Simone Simon
Photographer by profession, Simone Simon has been developing an artistic practice for fifteen years, mixing shots, videos, sound recordings and written testimonies. Each of his projects is built in a pragmatic way, to render a raw, often poetic reality. Anchored in a social approach, she seeks in the subjects she captures a living testimony, where absence and time weigh sometimes as a threat, sometimes as a hope.
Thus, time seems to have stopped when she photographs industrial districts and disused infrastructures in several European cities, giving light the leading role (Souriez, on se détruit, Ainsi va la lumière). With Les portes du St Pierre (published by Le Passager Clandestin), she meets women in a suburb of Nice as their insalubrious building, already half-abandoned, is about to be destroyed.
Invoking the buried memories of childhood, the cradle of the first emotions, she gathers audio testimonies, bordering on the dreamy (Do not watch the fox go by). With Nostalgia of the Present, a nod to the world of Paul Auster, she confronts the faces of children and adults: “Everything is already inscribed in a child’s face, “* she notes, and the double portraits she proposes bring out in a troubling way the astonishing resemblance of a face that time cannot alter.
Often, Simone Simon relies on the participation of anonymous people (On the passage of a few people through…) and whatever the problem posed, the images, stories and testimonies speak a common language to all. The artist highlights mental images, convictions, regrets or dreams, taking the time to listen, with the strong will of not staging anything, but simply seizing a subjective reality in which everyone can find a little of himself and his relationship to others. This was also her approach when she directed the film Boxing-club with Eric Antolinos, shot in a boxing club in the suburbs of Nice. There, she leaves the word free and lingers on the sporting gestures and on the attitudes which make the link between these inhabitants of all the generations and confused communities.
In her current work of photographs and testimonies, Le vent se lève, she brings together some thirty testimonies of women in the often troubled relationship they have with their bodies. Posing naked in an intimate setting, these anonymous women assert their desire for freedom: they rise up against cultural diktats and aesthetic codes, often alienating.
Without ever lapsing into pathos, nor claiming any kind of militancy, she nevertheless evokes how people’s lives are affected by political decisions of all kinds. Benevolence and slowness make this poetry so particular, where time seems suspended.
* Paul Auster in, The Invention of Solitude, ed. Actes Sud, 1993
