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Pierre Bourdieu / Paul Virilio

When photographic experience shapes thought

Echoing, artworks from Katia Kameli and Joachim Bandau

 

Exhibition in the Museum, level 4, room 34

14 October 2024 – 10 March 2025

This exhibition showcases the unexpected meeting of minds between Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002) and Paul Virilio (1932-2018), two of the most important French intellectuals of the second half of the 20th century, through their respective approaches to photography. In the late 1950s, they each started to put together two quite distinct corpuses of photographs, for the purposes of their research
As a sociologist and ethnologist, Bourdieu embraced the photographic experience as a crucial element, shaping his work in the field, while for city planner and philosopher Virilio, photography helped decipher his era and put his thoughts into images, like an archaeologist of the future. 

Pierre Bourdieu

Pierre Bourdieu is considered one of the outstanding sociologists of the 20th century, but less is known of his photographic output.

 

Between 1957 and 1961, serving first as a soldier in the French army and then as a professor of philosophy, he took many photographs of Algeria. This was a time of social upheaval, with the war of independence in full sway. Bourdieu's shots bore witness to the "uprooting" of indigenous peoples by the French colonial policy and reflected his interest in the various ways of life, between tradition and the shock of modernity. The photography of the author of Sociology of Algeria (1958) and Work and Workers in Algeria (1963) pointed to his interest in street scenes, dwellings and the Kabyl "habitus", as well as camps for uprooted families. These subjects contribute significantly to the humanist, politically-engaged tradition of photography in the 1930s through to the 1960s.

 

Bourdieu emphasised that photographic practice helped to transform his view of society, with lasting impact on his scientific work.


Images d’Algérie, 1957-1961

Gelatin Silver Prints / Digitized Negatives on Screens

Collection of the Musée National d'Art Moderne–Centre de Création Industrielle

The collection was acquired by the Photography Department of the National Museum of Modern Art in 2022. It had previously been conserved and studied at Camera Austria in Graz, Austria.


Pierre Bourdieu in a few dates

1930 Born in Denguin, Pyrénées-Atlantiques
1951 After studying at the Lycée Louis-Barthou in Pau and the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris, he enters the École normale supérieure.
1954 Receiving tenure as teacher in philosophy, he teaches at the Lycée de Moulins the following year.
1955-1958 Sent to Algeria for military service in the middle of the war.
1958-1960

Assistant at the Faculty of Humanities in Algiers.

Conducts fieldwork, notably in Kabylia.

1960 Assistant at the Sorbonne.
1961 Senior lecturer at the University of Lille.
1964 Director of Studies at the École pratique des hautes études (6th section).
1975 Editor of the journal Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales founded the same year.
1981 Joins the Collège de France, Chair of Sociology.
2001 Honorary Professor at the Collège de France.
2002 Dies in Paris.

Chronology of the Algerian War

1830 Beginning of the French conquest of Algeria
1926 Messali Hadj founds the Étoile nord-africaine, Algeria's first independence organization.
8 mai 1945 Bloody repression by French authorities of Algerian nationalist riots in Sétif, Guelma and Kherrata.
ler novembre 1954 "Fied Ail Saints' Day": the National Liberation Front (FLN) launches an armed insurrection in various régions of Algeria.
Avril 1955 The FLN takes part in a conference of 29 African and Asian countries of the so-called "Third World" in Bandoeng, Indonesia. The conference condemns colonization and expresses solidarity with the Algerian struggle.
Mars 1956 French prime minister Guy Mollet's government votes for "special powers" to extend the authorities of the French army, which mobilizes the military troops in Algeria.
Janvier 1957 Start of the Battle of Algiers: French paratroopers destroy FLN cells in the city to put an end to urban guerrilla warfare and FLN attacks. The widespread use of torture by colonial forces is disapproved of by military, political and intellectual figures.
Mai 1958 In Algiers, a demonstration by Algerian Europeans turns into riots They lead to the fall of the Fourth Fiepublic and the return to power of General de Gaulle.
Septembre 1959 De Gaulle declares his support for Algerian self-determination.
Janvier 1960 Week of barricades in Algiers. Algerian Europeans rise up against General de Gaulle's policies.
Avril 1961 Failed coup by French generals opposed to General de Gaulle's policies. The French army is divided. Some officers join the ranks of the Secret Army Organization (OAS), a clandestine structure created in February by "ultras" in French Algeria.
Mars 1962 The Évian Accords ratify the ceasefire and the organization of a referendum on self-determination for Algeria. OAS violence intensifies.
Juillet 1962 Proclamation of Algerian independence. Mass emigration of Europeans from Algeria. Massacres of Europeans (Oran) and Harkis.
Octobre 1999 The French Parliament reclassifies the term "operations carried out in North Africa" as "the Algerian War and fighting in Tunisia and Morocco".

Echoing Pierre Bourdieu's Images d'Algérie:

Katia Kameli

Visual artist, born in 1973 in Clermont-Ferrand (France)

L'Enquête Bourdieu. Le Ricochet des images (2024)

Video, 37 min

A film essay created from Pierre Bourdieu's photographic collection.


Paul Virilio

Over the decade 1958 to 1968, young painter of the Antiforms series and master glass artist Paul Virilio took photographs of bunkers on the French Atlantic beaches, these military outposts abandoned by the German army during the Occupation. He framed his subjects carefully, avoiding special effects, homing in on details and sought out architectural categories revealing the various forms of war. These black and white photographs depicted "Fortress Europe", speaking of architecture and acceleration.

 

In 1975, during its creation phase, the Centre Pompidou presented Virilio's Bunker Archaeology for the first time in an exhibition at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. The author published a book on the subject at the same time, bringing together the elements of his philosophy: military space and the information war, illusion and speed, a careful reading of the present and speculative thinking. This work continues even today to inspire intellectuals and artists worldwide.

My two universities were war and art. Paul Virilio


Bunker Archéologie, 1958-1968

Gelatin Silver Prints

Collection of the Musée National d'Art Moderne–Centre de Création Industrielle

In 2019, the entire Bunker Archéologie collection has been acquired by the Centre Pompidou. It contains around 700 photographic prints from different generations, contact sheets and negatives. The Centre Pompidou also keeps some 220 architectural drawings and sketches, 18 paintings from the Antiformes series and other documents from Paul Virilio's studio collection.


Paul Virilio in a few dates

1932 Born in Paris, then moved to Nantes with his parents.
1948 École des métiers d'arts de Paris, stained glass section, painter of movie posters and theater sets.
1949-1960 Attends courses given by Vladimir Jankélévitch, Raymond Aron, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, as well as by physicists Louis de Broglie and René Thom.
1950 Master glassmaker and painter of Antiformes.
1953 Military service in the cartographic service of the armed forces, Freiburg, Germany.
1955 Creation of a stained-glass workshop with his wife and master glass artist Suzanne Gruault, rue Rousselet, Paris 6e. Birth of their daughter Sophie.
1956 Called up for the Algerian War, stationed in the Aurès.
1960 Runs a painting gallery, rue de l'Ancienne Comédie, Paris 6e.
1963 Founded the group "Architecture Principe", then published a first manifesto for oblique architecture.
1968 Professor at the École Spéciale d'Architecture de Paris. He taught there for 27 years, becoming director in 1974.
1972 With his friend, the sociologist Jean Duvignaud, he creates the magazine Cause Commune, which is joined by the writer Georges Perec.
1972-1984 Member of the editorial boards of Causes Communes and Traverses (CCI Beaubourg).
1973 Founds the L'Espace critique collection at Galilée publishing house, publishing authors such as Georges Perec, Jean Baudrillard, Jean Duvignaud, Michel Onfray, Marc Augé, Ignacio Ramonet, Félix Guattari…
1980 Founding member of the Centre interdisciplinaire de recherche de la paix et d'études stratégiques, with Alain Joxe, at the Maison des Sciences de l'Homme.
1984 Contributes to L'Autre Journal and joins Marguerite Duras, Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, Jean-François Lyotard…
1990 Program director at the Collège international de philosophie under the direction of Jacques Derrida.
1991 Collaborates on the exhibition "La Vitesse" at the Fondation Cartier.
1993 Virilio et Chilpéric de Boiscuillé launch the "Urban Beacons" project.
1996 Participates in the "Bloc, le monolithe fracturé" exhibition at the VI Venice Mostra.
1997 Presides over the "Image et Politique" symposium at the Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie d'Arles.
2002-2017 He has curated numerous exhibitions in collaboration with the Fondation Cartier in Paris, including "Ce qui arrive", "Terre Natale. Ailleurs commence ici", "EXIT".
2018 Paul Virilio died on September 10.

 


Resonances of Bunker Archeology in the work of Paul Virilio

1943 As a child, Nantes was bombed by the Allies.
1958-1968 Undertakes a phenomenological study of the Atlantic Wall bunkers.
1966

Creation of the Église Sainte-Bernadette du Banlay in Nevers, with Claude Parent, a sacred building in the shape of a bunker.

Publication of issue 7 of the magazine Architecture Principe, dedicated to Bunker Archéologie.

1975

"Bunker Archéologie" exhibition at the Musée des Arts décoratifs, under the aegis of CCI Beaubourg.

"Bunker Archéologie" publication, Édition CCI, 1975.

1984

Publication of Guerre et Cinéma, Logistique de la perception, Cahiers du Cinéma/Édition de l'Étoile.

1990-1991 Chronicler of the Gulf War. Contributed to numerous newspapers and publications in France and abroad.
1991 For the second edition of "Bunker Archéologie", he wrote an afterword focusing on the new weapons technologies used during the Gulf War.
2018 Participates with "Bunker Archéologie" in the exhibition "Remembering Landscape" in Siegen, Germany.

Echoing Paul Virilio's Bunker Archéologie:

Joachim Bandau

Sculptor, drawer, born in 1936 in Cologne (Allemange)

Paul Virilio Bunker Archéologie (1976)

Beispiele terroristischen Umfeldes (Exemples d’environnements terroristes) (1977)

Bunker (1978)

Drawings

 

Sophie Virilio

Dual-voice reading: Bunker Archéologie and notes from Paul Virilio’s unpublished travel logs

Sound installation

Extracts read by Stéphane Paoli and Sophie Virilio


The exhibition was conceived with Christine Frisinghelli, Franz Schultheis and Sophie Virilio. 
It is organized in cooperation with Camera Austria in Graz, the Pierre Bourdieu Foundation and the Association Atelier Paul Virilio.