Alexandre de Metz by Carole Schmitz

Alexandre de Metz – L’Instinct of the’image

Clear vision, sharp look, market intuition. Alexandre de Metz embodies this generation of cultural entrepreneurs who have been able to make dialogue artistic requirement and accessibility. Co-founder of Yellowkorner, a house that has become a global reference to the distribution of art photography, he has defended a singular ambition for almost twenty years: to take the photograph out of closed circles to install it in the daily life of the greatest number. But without compromise. Neither on the quality of the prints – entrusted to an art laboratory – nor on the artistic line – where legendary figures of contemporary photography and new promising talents rub shoulders.

A graduate of ESSEC, trained in the economy but inhabited by culture, he founded Yellowkorner in 2006 with his accomplice Paul-Antoine Briat. What was initially a bet quickly became a phenomenon. Between the current of traditional galleries, they invent a new way of collecting: more direct, more sensitive, freer. Today, Yellowkorner is present in more than 130 galleries around the world, from Paris to Shanghai, from New York to Dubai, and continues to assert a cosmopolitan vision of photography, at the crossroads of luxury, gaze and visual narration.

But Alexandre de Metz is not just his entrepreneurial success. He is an enlightened amateur, capable of quoting Paolo Roversi like Sarah Moon, to vibrate in front of a draw by Robert Frank or to move in front of the Madonna of Bentalha by Juliette Hanrot. He talks about photography as we talk about music: with emotion, precision and passion. What interests him is what upsets, what stops, what moves. Behind the entrepreneur hides an eye, and behind the eye, a sensitivity.

Tireless curious, he collects rare books, travels the sales rooms as we search a secret library, and confesses an ancient love for dark rooms, piano concerts, or sad clowns photographed by Nadar. At the crossroads of the market and the intimate, it embodies a singular way of being in the image today aware of its power, but also of its fragility.

Modern humanist, Alexandre de Metz believes that photography can change perceptions, reveal invisible truths, awaken consciences. In a world saturated with images, he militates for a more attentive, more demanding, more embodied look. A look that crosses time, and says something about our time.

www.yellowkorner.com
Instagram : @akthyrka / @yellowkorner_official

Your first photographic click?
It is the smell of the chemical baths of Osson-sur-Loire. I was fifteen years old, I developed my first silver prints in the lab of our family home.

The man or woman of images that inspires you?
Clara Haskil. Exceptional pianist, to the destiny of immense fragility and rare intensity. With her, it’s all about shades and controlled tension.

The image you would have liked rElize?
Undoubtedly one of the photographs of the series American West de Richard Avedon.

The one that has the mostin?
Recently I rediscovered this portrait of Jane Evelyn Atwood of an incarcerated woman who gives birth, lying on her bed a frontal, defenseless, of an overwhelming intensity.

The one who made you angry?
Les clichés by Sebastião Salgado Dans Les Mines of Serra Pelada.

A photographic memory of your childhood?
A stolen photograph taken with my first silver apparatus, that of a farmer and his cows in the early morning, in the Loire’s fog.

L’Image that obs youAndof ?
A des portraits de Natalia par Paolo Roversi.

The one who changed the world?
Dali Atomicus by Philippe Halsman, a technical and creative feat.

The one who changed your world?
I am thinking of my parents’ wedding photo, in black and white, with a row of children at heart – a moment suspended.

Without budget limit, what would be the work you areelSee youError?
Probably an original draw by Robert Frank from his series The Americans. This book is a visual and narrative slap. He says everything about the fragility, the loneliness, the beauty of the interstices of a country and an era.

In your opinion, what is the quality nsteam for elbe a good photographer?
Photographing is writing with the light, so you have to have the photo in mind before even triggered while accepting that the real exceeds you, and surprises you.

The secret of the perfect image, if it exists?
It does not exist but if it stops you, if it speaks to you in silence, then it is fair. Avedon said ‘all the photos are correct but none is true ”.

The person you would like to photograph?
A jazz band in full action or apparently banal families, as Tina Barney did.

The one you would like elbe photographed?
Jamie Hawkesworth, for her ability to suspend time, to bring up grace in the silences or Elizaveta Porodina for her limitless creativity.

An essential photo book?
Blue Note Photographs of Francis Wolff. A whole era, a style, a way of listening with the eyes.

The camera of your childhood?
A rolleiflex 6 × 6 2.8 Planar. He fascinated me because I had to dive into a light well and frame at the waist: a discreet and direct look.

The one you use today?
An iPhone, like everyone else. But I keep my boxes like talismans.

Your Pré DrugfandrI?
Sales rooms until midnight. I Chinese rare books, invisible editions, as we are looking for treasures.

The best way to disconnect for you?
A piano concert. The black of the room and silence just before the first note already transports us.

What is your relationship with the image?
The image is immediate. Photography is a memory. The image tells. Photography touches. These are two different regimes of the gaze. Often the image reassures and the photograph destabilizes.

Your greatest quality ?
Curiosity. I’m still looking for a new perspective.

Your lastAndre folie ?
An original drawing by Akira Toriyama, who died last year.

An image to illustrate a new bank note?
Sarah Bernhardt by Nadar in clown – for cynicism.

The work you wouldn’t have liked to do?
Politician.

Your greatest professional extravagance?
Having co-founded Yellowkorner in 2006. Nobody expected us, we went for it. It was dizzying, intense, sometimes insane but always sincere and exciting.

Does photography have the power to change the collective perception of’and andvEnnement or D’An era?
Absolutely, I am thinking in particular of the photograph of Juliette Hanrot Bentalha’s Madonnathis woman who screams without noise taken in 1997 in the suburbs of Algiers. The image shows a woman holding her murdered child in her arms. The cliché still transcends the simple testimony to become an icon of civil suffering and the horror of the war. She marked the spirits because she crystallizes the inexpressible pain of a mother, but also the absurdity of violence. Through this photograph, the gaze on the Algerian conflict has changed: it is no longer just a conflict but a universal human tragedy.

How do you perceive’Influence of social networks on manAndre whose photographs are created and perçUes today?
Instagram is a multiplied mirror: sometimes flattering, often distorting. But this also allows photography to gain visibility and democratize, it is up to us to welcome innovation by preserving the photographic requirement.

An Instagram account has follow absolutely?
I am more and more curation accounts that offer inspiring feeds that allow you to discover authors, sometimes emerging, I think for example of The Analog Club where each post is a gateway to a photographic universe. (@the.analog.club)

What is the lastAndre thing you have done for the firstAndre times?
Reread a book for the third time, “Voyage at the end of the night” by Céline.

What is a successful photo?
It’s a photo that stops you. A fraction of a second or a lifetime.

What differences between photography and art photography?
Photography records, interpreter art photography. One document, the other transforms.

The city, the country or the culture that you reltime of dEat?
North Korea, which touched me enormously artistically and photographically, I am thinking in particular of the work of Philippe Chancel. I would like to be able to see this country with my own eyes.

The place you never tire of?
Vézelay, such a mysterious town where spirituality is omnipresent. Everything becomes a reflection and silence there.

Your greatest regret?
Not to have said yes when I was offered to photograph James Brown, I didn’t believe it.

Color or n & b?
I have a deep respect for black and argentic white, but the color – when it is well mastered – is a writing.

Lightre of the day or lumaAndre artificial?
Natural light.

What do you think is the most photogenic city?
It’s difficult but I would say New York.

If I could organize your Dineer idéal, which would be has table ?
My wife if Vivian Maier wants to keep my children, for the anecdote she was nanny.

If God existed, would you ask him to pose for you, or would you opt for a selfie with him?
I think I will ask him to sign a contract to distribute it at Yellowkorner.

The image that represents for you the current state of the world?
A photo of Alex Webb: layers of life, looks that are ignored, a saturation of images or a photo of Martin Parr.

If you had to start everything again?
I would not start again. I would continue. I believe in construction in stages. This is only the beginning.

Note from the Director of Publication.
Carole Schmitz has all editorial freedom for her questionnaires.
Their tone can sometimes reflect, and this is the case here, a the editorial line different from that of The eye of photography.
Indeed, The eye of photography does not support Yellowkorner’s commercial approach.

Jean-Jacques Naudet / Director of publication