PARIS.- Claude Dityvon's icons from May 68 are recognized by a very wide Public. The expert Christophe Goeury and
Millon Auction House invite you to discover the work of this unclassifiable photographer through a monographic auction of a selection of 320 photographs that covers his production from 1967 to 2007, all printed by the artist and from his personal collection.
This visual poet invites us to revisit the world around us through his images. Claude Dityvon does not remain focused on the topics and subjects he photographs: from student uprisings of May 68 to views of slums or cityscapes, from enigmatic nighttime scenes or portraits of blue collar workers.... these serve him to establish a visual language defined by the following elements: man, sometimes almost invisible, in a patiently composed image that seizes the impalpable, the silences, the unreal, the dream world and especially the secret harmonies that can connect men.
Claude Dityvon’s visual language is built with a precise composition that opposes and confronts light and dark, that emphasizes movements, that dynamically uses blurs and shifts to tell stories, that seizes the unexpected and the mysterious… His discovery of Giacometti’s famous sculpture “The Walking Man” inspired him to this aspiration. He decided from that moment on that his photography would be like “The Walking Man”: that of a man that carries on his shoulders the mystery, fragility and the unpredictability of life, while continuing to walk upright.
May 68
« La rue parlait. Moi, je parle. Et regarder c’est aussi une manière de parler ».
« The street was speaking. I speak. And looking is also a way of speaking ».
Claude DITYVON
General De Gaulle’s France is at a turning point. Cultural tensions, social strikes, May 68 is here. Claude Dityvon wanders across Parisian streets, his camera at hand. Together with Gilles Caron (1939-1970) and Bruno Barbey (born in 1941), they are the three photographers who have immortalised May 68’s events.
Caron and Barbey were capturing images as photo-journalists do, capturing the rebellion and violent protests. Unlike them, Dityvon is not focusing on documenting the events. He does not snap away at strikes, he is not looking for a press photo or an illustration for an event, as he is not hired by any newspaper or journal – and never sold any image to the press at the time.
Dityvon focuses on his own emotion. He observes, feels, waits, sometimes for a long time, until an image comes to him. Surrounded by constant conflict, he is free and allows himself to photograph without constraint.
With blurs, moves and close-ups, the photographer tells a story, mainly his, asserting his way of seeing things and wishing to establish a visual language. His images are perfectly composed into half-lights, and each view is an invitation to penetrate into the moment of life it features.
On the photograph illustrated on the first page, a young man is seated on a chair, looking into the fumes of tear gas. Far in front of him, the shadows of policeman can be perceived. This unusual photograph, taken in the midst of a violent protest on the boulevard Saint-Michel at 2am, perfectly reflects a subtle and cinematographic composition. A timeless atmosphere of chaos and at the same time a sense of serenity prevail in this balanced image. The emotion and the personal poetic universe of the photographer are, in this picture, perfectly transcribed. (estimate: €1,000-2,000).
The 71 photographs offered for sale on May 68, are those used to illustrate the edition of the May 68 book by Carrere / Kian of 1988 and most of them bear the handwritten titles by the singer Renaud on the backs of each of the works.
Claude Dityvon was born in 1937 in La Rochelle. He grew up in a working-class neighbourhood and spent most of his time observing people and absorbing the life around him. These atmospheres and the people he met at the time have influenced the way he would look at life, society and the world. This is where he was inspired to capture his favourite themes, such as life in the countryside, workers, cities… but always with Man as a main subject.
Between 1962 and 1967, he lived peacefully with his wife Christiane, who bought him his very first camera. With Paris as a playground, he captured the atmospheres of neighbourhoods like Belleville or the Courneuve, turning these disparaged worlds into the set of wonderful human adventure. With kindness and sensitivity, he transformed these people, that are often forgotten, and brought a gentle harmony into these tough districts. His powerful photographs express a quest: to seize the fragile balance of Man and to uncover the poetry of each moment, in everyone.
In 1972, he created the agency VIVA with Martine Franck, Guy Le Querrec, Hervé Gloaguen, François Hers, Richard Kalvar, Jean Lattès and Alain Dagbert. With an innovative point of view on society, this group of photographers stand out from existing press agencies.
From the 1980s, he worked with Les Cahiers du Cinéma on a project titled “Album de tournages” which presented how 10 film directors worked on 10 different French film sets: Claude Chabrol, Maurice Pialat, André Téchiné, Jean-Pierre Mocky, Raoul Ruiz, Manuel de Oliveira, Jacques Demy…
In 2004, he follows the steps of Arthur Rimbaud and his 1886 journey aboard a caravan in the current Republic of Djibouti. Dityvon produced a book and an exhibition “Rimbaud’s Caravan” from this journey.
