The museum of photography of Charleroi

[TIL #17] A hike through the history of photography and an abundant feast

I know where they are, the Cartier-Bresson with the guy looking through a hole in a palisade in Brussels, the 'migrant mother', the blurry Capa from the beach of Normandy, the Klein and the Doisneau, and the two Saul Leiter ... I know exactly where on the wall they will be and when i enter the room, i sort of warmly ‘eye wave’ at these old friends that i'm always happy to see.

Sometimes, though, they're not there at all, or they're somewhere else. This happens with museum collections: sometimes they rotate the works on show, sometimes they rearrange them. And at the next visit, in the place of the photograph i was expecting to recognise, there's another image, either known or yet to get acquainted with — and it's nice too, making new friends, expanding your horizons.

Charleroi is a run-down industrial town in the South of Belgium. Its landscape is characterised by the terrils, that is, hills that are made of the spoil from the coal mining industry. The mines are closed now and a museum that takes you back to the Industrial Revolution. Today, the town is a complex mixture of migration (families of the people who worked in the mines), unemployment, industrial reconversion, and gentrification. And then, there’s the fantastic museum of photography.

The building is a former Carmelite convent - you’ll recognise the chapel, the cells or the cloister - but the neo-gothic edifice befriended an alien: the new wing, inaugurated in 2008, is of a very modern design. The two parts get along quite well - the photo above shows the stairway at the intersection of the two wings, with the convent’s brick wall to the right. At the back of the museum, there is a beautiful park where enlarged posters from past exhibitions are hanging, and a friendly cafeteria that is perfect for a beer and a restorative ham and cheese toast after the long walk through the rich collections of the museum.

At any moment, the museum presents works from permanent collections that cover the whole history of the medium, from the experiments of early days to the most recent production. And at any moment, there are 3 temporary exhibitions. In other words, there is a lot, and it is the good stuff. From Brussels, it is a two-hour ride on public transport — treasure vaults, it seems, are always somewhat hidden, you’ve got to work for your share of the loot…

One of the recent temporary exhibitions was the retrospective of Belgian photographer Michel Vanden Eeckhoudt that i mentioned in an earlier post. Another discovery that comes to mind at this moment consisted of large square images of car repair workshops from various countries: the colours were beautiful, and it was fascinating to see a mundane place turn into a work of art (Garage Stills, by Jacquie Maria Wessels). I also enjoyed a retrospective of Lisette Model where i could look at 150 of her photographs, and i remember the feeling of fright in front of Diana Matar’s my America, a collection of pictures of street corners where people had been killed by police in the USA. The museum also recently revisited the strong work produced in (and on) Charleroi by 5 photographers commissioned to explore the town during a residency. The programme is diverse, and the loot is always worth the trip.

After seeing the temporary exhibitions of the moment, comes the hike through the history of photography and the permanent collection. In the first section of the trip, you will encounter images by Julia Margaret Cameron, Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, or Alvin Langdon Coburn (and many more artists). You’ll then come to a corridor: to your left, the cloister, to the right, the door to the new wing, but for now, head straight on to meet Atget, August Sander (including the Young Farmers picture recently commented by Andy Adams), Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, Bill Brandt, Manuel Alvarez Bravo or Brassai (and, again, many more photographers). There’s a room dedicated to surrealism (Paul Nougé, René Magritte, …) before the journey continues upstairs with images by Robert Capa, Willy Ronis, Robert Doisneau, William Klein, Diane Arbus, Robert Frank, or Saul Leiter… Before you enter the new wing, you should check the small room where recent video work is shown. In the large concrete cubes of the modern wing, you progressively come to contemporary works and larger prints (at this moment, i am thinking of Rob Hornstra and Mona Khun — but, as you guess: i could mention many more).

Every time, i’m amazed at how much i see, learn and discover: it is a feast. I hope you’ll get a chance to visit.

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I’ve recently enjoyed the conversations in these two episodes of the Photo Ethics Podcast:

• https://www.photoethics.org/podcast/nilupa-yasmin - Nilupa Yasmin talks about unconscious bias, accessibility, and representation, and participatory work with communities.

• https://www.photoethics.org/podcast/photovoice-worldwide - about photo voice, a small women-led social enterprise whose mission is to help individuals and organizations use photovoice safely, ethically, and successfully, while creating a global community for photovoice peer-to-peer support and continuing education.

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That’s all for now. As always, thank you for reading, and don’t hesitate to write back to let me know what you think.