Photography: Lille celebrates sport in pictures

A series of exhibitions tries to bring the population to museums through the sports theme.

To bring people to culture through sport: the intention is laudable; the realization, more complicated. In Lille, a new event called "Sportfoto", organized until November 4 by Lille 3000, aims to broaden the horizon of all sports - grass or retired, practitioners and those of the couch. "Our cultural policy manages to reach many people , summarizes the mayor of Lille, Martine Aubry . But it remains a failure, the young neighborhoods that do not come. We thought that with this project, we could both bring these kids to culture and value the sport. "
At the beginning of September, a weekend filled with sports events allowed the inhabitants of Lille (including the mayor!) To cross the cultural highlights, from the Opéra to the Hospice Comtesse, sneakers on the feet, during a night-time trail. . But most of the event consists of free photo exhibitions, until 4 November, in three of the city's landmarks - Tripostal, Hospice Comtesse and Saint-Sauveur station - designed by Jean-Denis Walter, former editor in chief at L'Equipe magazine and now director of a sports photo gallery in Paris.

Ambitions too numerous
No doubt the initial ambitions were there too many for this first edition, which aims to both celebrate the three kings sports in the area - cycling, football and boxing - to put in value the clubs and local volunteers, advocating "the values of sport" and to discover the authors to the original approach. No doubt also the passion and the communion proper to the love of sport do not always marry well with the critical spirit proper to the artistic process.

The fact is that the exhibitions, torn between all these requirements, instead of being limited to a few well-chosen projects, often turn to crazy potpourri. We would have liked to learn more about Georges Charpentier (1894-1975): this first French boxing world champion, from Liévin, ended his career as ... tap dancer. He is represented here through a single reproduction at the Hospice Comtesse which brings together around a ring number of various works on the theme of boxing.

The adventure of the France 1998 team was well worth remembering thanks to the famous documentary Les Eyes dans les Bleus and the images taken by its author Stéphane Meunier in the intimacy of the players. The evocation of the victory of 2018 leaves her, on her hunger. While there is so much to do on the control of images by current players, it will be necessary to be content with the best moments and portraits of players by AFP. The exhibition devoted to one of the masters of sports photography, Briton Bob Martin, champion of the gesture seized in full flight, would have deserved a presentation more ample and not distributed on two places.

Celebration of Heroes
Often, the recoilless celebration of heroes, big or small, outweighs everything else. Even Pauce, hired to photograph the mini-champions of local clubs, manages to make them lose all their share of childhood and spontaneity. To obtain a "perfect" photo, he photographed each child one by one, before sticking it all in false collective images where the little ones pose as warriors, haloed by a starlight and ready to fight .

There is, however, Tripostal, work not always well developed, but worth the detour. Ken Grant, in black and white, photographs football in Liverpool without ever going to a stadium, testifying to the life of "Scousers", the inhabitants of his city, supporters of the two big clubs. In Berlin, Harald Hauswald follows the life of the FC Union club with vivid images since the 1980s. Rebellious club before the fall of the Wall, a haunt of hooligans, he meets today the "Ostalgiques". Every Christmas, the fans come to sing Christmas carols in the empty stadium. They recently spent weekends renovating the stadium to savethe club of disappearance. Images that tell, beyond sport, a country and a story.