Edition 2017

Proportion observed

Dwarfs, strongmen and giants
Claude Ribouillault collection

Gnome or ogre, Lilliputian or strongman, true or false Pygmy, dwarf or colossus of the stage or the street… Since differences in size are patent, inescapable, visible and loud in relation to the average, they’ve attracted, and they attract, the eye, sympathy, and empathy. They also attract judgment, conventional wisdom, and ostracism. Of course, the image alone cannot determine our point of view towards each other.We discover some snapshots among this collection of images, which are, in a sense, stolen from private life, and a mere glance sorts and separates them out; we also find elements of investigations tracking the rare, the exceptional, the bizarre; and we find professional portraits, promotionals claiming the phenomenal, and laying claim to it, in near arrogance, in the name of the record. Humanity is there, sized up, multiple, and rich in diversity. In fact, these images, in the contradictory and paradoxical variety that they project, have much to say about us, our injuries as well as our pride.
Claude Ribouillault

Publication: Nains, hercules & géants. Humanités prises par la taille, Le Rouergue, 2016.
Framings by Circad, Paris.

  • Institutional partners

    • République Française
    • Région Provence Alpes Côté d'Azur
    • Département des Bouches du Rhône
    • Arles
    • Le Centre des monuments nationaux est heureux de soutenir les Rencontres de la Photographie d’Arles en accueillant des expositions dans l’abbaye de Montmajour
  • Main partners

    • Fondation LUMA
    • BMW
    • SNCF
    • Kering
  • Media partners

    • Arte
    • Lci
    • Konbini
    • Le Point
    • Madame Figaro
    • France Culture