Photographie, art documentaire

Abstract

The paper tries to frame what could be a documentary artistic practice today in the field of photography, and to specify the nature of the ties that can link such a practice to approaches in social sciences. It discusses the case of the written report (William Vollmann), replacing it within the tradition of journalism and the more recent evolution of the relationship between information and mass media. It then highlights the specificity of the documentary tradition in photography, long ignored because of the prevalence of photojournalism, until the 1970s in the USA and in France. It then introduces Marc Pataut’s work and stresses the relationship that his work has to fieldwork and investigation, two notions pertaining to social sciences but also to the history of photography practice. Finally, it describes the processes (duration, narrative, montage), and the collaboration forms (with photographed subjects, with social sciences researchers), which define this documentary art.

Keywords

• literature
• investigation
• photography
• documentary
• Vollmann (William)