In honour of Clamart Art Week, the Chanot Contemporary Art Center invites the photographer Yannick Vallet, a Clamart native, to present a selection of works from his series on public benches, a collection that has been growing since 2009. Seventeen photographs have been exhibited and accompanied by a voiceover narration specifically designed for the exhibition at the Maison Blanche Park in Clamart.
Bench : [bɛntʃ]. n. A long seat, with or without backrest, on which several people can sit at once.
“For about ten years, I’ve photographed, collected, and arranged all the benches I cross on my path. And I remember very well when this all began.
It was in Guéthary, on an August day in 2009, near the Sentier des Baleines.
It was a rather grey day, a bit humid. It was facing the ocean and this bench from a past age, very art deco, modelled after the old hotel that I had just passed, seemed to be waiting for me. But at that moment, as I pressed on the shutter release, I had no idea that the bench would become the first in a very long series…”
Biography of Yannick Vallet
Yannick Vallet is a Clamartois photographer with roots in cinema and television (he has directed fiction films and documentaries). A specialist in filmmaking, auteur of three shorts, and graduate of the École Supérieure d’Études Cinématographiques de Paris, he has always put photography and film production into intimate relation with one another. It was in 2009 with the launch of his photoblog “Two or Three Things” that Yannick Vallet decided to devote himself exclusively to photography. Since, he has worked on several series with a shared interest in exploring the past and discovering unknown lands.
