Diacronie. Studi di Storia Contemporanea (Sep 2014)

«The Family of Man»: réflexions autour des usages et de la patrimonialisation d’une exposition photographique controversée

  • Claude Dupuis est diplômé de l’Université de Trèves (Allemagne) et docteur en Histoire de l’Art. Dans une approche transdisciplinaire (histoire de l’art, sociologie visuelle), il poursuit ses investigations sur la formation du regard, en particulier celui des photographes. C’est ainsi que dans un esprit analogue, il porte régulièrement son intérêt sur la reconnaissance et la reproduction de schémas constructifs en photographie à travers les époques.

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 6, no. 3
pp. 1 – 16

Abstract

Read online

Between its inception in 1955 and his temporary disappearance in 1966, the photographic exhibition «The Family of Man» curated by Edward Steichen from images collected around the world has continued to attract a large audience. Restored in the Nineties and presented permanently to the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg since June 1994, the exhibition vehicles since its origin a “humanistic” differently appreciated message by the critics. This contribution goes back in a first time over these various controversies, mainly led by the rejection of an Americanism both too liberal and too religious and moralizing. At the same time it attempts to dissociate the uses that could be made by the successive owners of the exposure, from its circulation during the cold war until its installation at the castle of Clervaux. Finally, from the assumption of a previously “nationalist” use of the photographic collection, it is a reflection on the genesis and implications of the inclusion of «The Family of Man» in the “Register of the Memory of the World” by UNESCO in 2003 which is conducted.

Keywords