documentation céline duval

Céline Duval was born in 1974 in Saint-Germain-en-Laye and lives and works in Houlgate. Since 1998, she has been putting together a collection of photographic images by amateur photographers, from postcards and press clippings. These images are digitized, restored, classified thematically then published or exhibited. This process results in a change of status for these generally anonymous pictures, where a whole range of unseen images are made visible once again. Stereotypes are revealed (advertising diktats in her video Les Allumeuses, where a pile of fashion photos are shown one by one before being thrown on a fire) as well as the visual power of the images (Sporting feats from the series Trophées). Her work is a mirror of photographic practise over the years and was presented in a solo exhibition at the art centre Micro-onde in 2013. It features in the collections of the MoMA (USA), the Muséo Reina Sofia (Spain), the CNAP , the Sérignan museum, the MAC/VAL, the Kandinsky library, the Pompidou Centre and the National Library collection (France).