Maison Niépce × Gregory Halpern: a Turnkey Exhibition for the 200th Anniversary of Photography
On the occasion of the bicentennial of photography, photographer Gregory Halpern, a member of the Magnum Photos agency, presents a series created around the Maison Niépce. This exhibition is available as a ready-to-hang exhibition box, designed for cultural institutions.
An exhibition for the 200th anniversary of photography
To mark the bicentennial of the invention of photography, the Maison Niépce, the Magnum Photos agency and the photography school Spéos present an unprecedented project dedicated to the place where photography was born.
American photographer Gregory Halpern, a member of Magnum Photos, was invited to create a series of images inside the Maison Niépce in Saint-Loup-de-Varennes, in Burgundy.
Two hundred years after the invention of photography by Nicéphore Niépce, this artistic project offers a contemporary perspective on the very place where the history of the medium began.
In order to allow cultural institutions to participate in this historic celebration, the series is offered in the form of a box containing a ready-to-hang photographic exhibition.
This solution enables media libraries, city halls, cultural centers, art schools and artistic institutions to easily host an exhibition connected to the bicentennial of photography.
The distribution and commercialization of this box are handled by Magnum Photos.
Gregory Halpern, photographer with Magnum Photos
Gregory Halpern is one of the most widely recognized contemporary photographers of his generation. For several years, his work has explored the relationship between landscape, memory and collective narrative.
The author of eight monographs, Gregory Halpern has developed a photographic body of work distinguished by a particular attention to places and atmospheres. His images often propose a poetic reading of reality and question the ways in which territories shape our imagination.
His photographs are now part of the collections of major international institutions, including:
- the Museum of Modern Art,
- the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art,
- the Museum of Fine Arts Houston,
- the Fotomuseum Antwerpen.
His work is also included in the collections of the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson and the Fondation d’entreprise Hermès. A Guggenheim Fellowship recipient, Gregory Halpern is represented by Magnum Photos. A graduate of Harvard University and the California College of the Arts, he lives in Rochester, New York State.
He currently teaches photography at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), an institution with which Spéos has partnered for more than 40 years.
The Maison Niépce: the place where photography was born
The Maison Nicéphore Niépce is a unique place in the history of the image. It was in this family house that Nicéphore Niépce, between 1816 and 1832, developed his research on fixing images through light and invented photography in 1824.
It was also from a window of this house that he produced in 1827 the famous View from the Window at Le Gras, considered the first photograph to have survived to this day.
There, Niépce developed heliography, a process using Bitumen of Judea to fix an image on a light-sensitive surface exposed to light.
Today, the Maison Niépce still preserves the original spaces where these experiments were conducted: darkrooms, workshops and working rooms.
Restored beginning in 1999 by the photography school Spéos, it is now officially recognized with the “Maison des Illustres” label and constitutes an essential site for understanding the origin and history of photography. Two centuries after Niépce’s invention, this house remains the symbolic starting point of the history of the photographic medium.
Photographing the origin of photography
As part of this project, Gregory Halpern was invited to work within the Maison Niépce itself. He thus became the fourth artist to work in this emblematic place, after Paolo Roversi, Daido Moriyama and Janine Niépce.
The photographer spent several days in the house observing the light, the spaces and the traces of time that characterize this historic site. This immersion allowed him to reflect on the birth of the photographic gaze and on Niépce’s founding gesture.
As he explains: “I wanted to spend time at Niépce’s window, reflecting on the original desire to fix an image and on the birth of an idea that would shape the modern imagination.”
In these moments of calm, Halpern imagined Niépce’s window as the first viewfinder and the house itself as an immense primitive photographic camera. The images created in this context do not simply attempt to document a historic place. They offer a visual exploration of time, light and the memory of the site.
Through fragments, details and atmospheres, the series creates a dialogue between the origin of photography and contemporary creation.
A turnkey exhibition for cultural institutions
In order to ensure the wide dissemination of this artistic project, the series created by Gregory Halpern is offered as a ready-to-hang exhibition box.
This format allows cultural institutions to easily organize a photographic exhibition around the bicentennial of photography, without production constraints.
The box contains:
- the photographic prints from the series created at the Maison Niépce,
- the exhibition presentation texts,
- the artwork labels and information,
- the installation instructions.
Thanks to this turnkey format, the exhibition can be easily purchased, quickly delivered and simply installed in many different types of cultural venues.
For which venues?
The exhibition box is designed to be presented in many cultural spaces, including:
- city halls and municipal cultural spaces,
- media libraries and libraries,
- cultural centers,
- art schools and universities,
- museums and heritage sites,
- French cultural institutes abroad.
It allows institutions to present to the public a contemporary artistic exhibition connected to the history of photography and the bicentennial of this invention.
Practical information
- Exhibition: Maison Niépce × Gregory Halpern
- Format: ready-to-hang photographic exhibition box
- Number of prints: 19 photographs 50 cm wide, accompanied by 3 texts
- Total installation surface required: 50 cm × 22 panels = 11 linear meters, to which spacing must be added
- Price of the box: €3,500
- Distribution: Magnum Photos
Institutions interested can contact Magnum Photos for any information regarding the acquisition of the exhibition box: andrea.holzherr@magnumphotos.com
About Spéos and the Maison Niépce
The Maison Niépce was restored beginning in 1999 by the photography school Spéos.
This historic site now constitutes a major place for the transmission of the history of photography.
On the occasion of the bicentennial of the invention of photography, this project with Gregory Halpern creates a dialogue between heritage and contemporary creation, reminding us that every photograph made today finds its roots in the visionary invention of Nicéphore Niépce.
