Harry Gruyaert, photographer

Belgium
2018
fr
en
65'

Direction: Gerrit Messiaen

Harry Gruyaert has a rare ability to compose colour. He avoids the pitfalls of the genre by creating nuanced images, with a feeling of loneliness, of tender irony, of the “beauty of ugliness”. A form of “Belgitude”, to echo the words of Aimé Césaire. But Harry Gruyaert is not “just” Belgian-Flemish; here we understand that his life abroad afforded him a clearer view of Belgium. We also understand that this silent hypersensitive is inhabited by photography.

Harry Gruyaert, photographer

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Synopsis

Harry Gruyaert has a rare ability to compose colour. He avoids the pitfalls of the genre by creating nuanced images, with a feeling of loneliness, of tender irony, of the “beauty of ugliness”. A form of “Belgitude”, to echo the words of Aimé Césaire. But Harry Gruyaert is not “just” Belgian-Flemish; here we understand that his life abroad afforded him a clearer view of Belgium. We also understand that this silent hypersensitive is inhabited by photography.

What you will find in this film

Belgian identity seen by Harry Gruyaert • A sensitivity to colour • The art of shifting to see better • The vital necessity of photographing • The photographer's feeling of freedom • The place of the photographer's family • The happy wandering of the gaze • The community of New York artists • The Magnum family • The rigour of printing • Photographing TV • photographing to protect yourself from the world

Keywords

Street photography Photographic instinct Colour Analogue photogaphy The artist inspiration

It was more the beauty of ugliness that interested me, this "weird country" with its "weird mentalities"... this pretty surreal stuff...

Harry Gruyaert

Photography at 24 images per second!

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The authors/artists

Gerrit Messiaen

Raymond Depardon

François Hebel

Manager - Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson

Further exploration

• INDIA, Harry Gruyaert, Atelier EXB, Paris, 2020

• HARRY GRUYAERT, pub. Textuel, Paris, 2015

• MAROC, HARRY GRUYAERT, pub. Textuel, Paris, 2013

• ROOTS : BELGIQUE 1970 - 1980, pub. Xavier Barral, Paris, 2012

• MOSCOU, pub. Be-pôles, Paris, 2010

• TV SHOTS, pub. Steidl Verlag, Göttingen, 2007

• HARRY GRUYAERT, photo-poche, pub. Actes Sud, Arles, 2006