François Hers & Sophie Ristelhueber - Intérieurs - AAM 1981

Scarce book produced in 1979 with the help of a grant from Wallonia's official social housing department, Intérieurs was originally intended as a survey of the state of housing built since 1945. Contrary to the expectations of his commissioners, François Hers chose to focus solely on the decoration of the dwellings, while Sophie Ristelhueber painted portraits of the inhabitants. In contrast to the iconography of poverty and deprivation, the photographs highlight the abundance of kitsch decorations and the violent appropriation that the residents show towards their homes. The accumulation of knick-knacks and the superimposition of motifs (wallpaper, giant posters) create an image of ordinary pomp and circumstance. The use of Kodachrome film and flash crushes the volumes, giving the images a strangely painterly quality. Faced with this formal profusion, Hers opts for a neutrality in keeping with the documentary style. But while Walker Evans' aesthetic of “unconscious arrangements” was based on the idea of generalised creativity and the celebration of American vernacular culture, François Hers takes a much more critical turn.
Photos by François Hers and Sophie Ristelhueber.
Texts by Jean-François Chevrier, René Schoonbrodt.

128p - FR - 23x28cm - softcover - very good condition