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Opening Friday, July 21, 5 pm by VU photographer Laurence Leblanc (Fr).

Mrs. Leblanc will be available for interviews all day friday by appointment.

Since it was established in 1986 the renowned photo agency VU has operated with an eccentric credo: it is not the photo that is central, but the photographer. This places Agence VU, located in Paris, squarely in the tradition of the magazine from which it takes its name. VU was the first photo-illustrated magazine in France to publish work by illustrious photographers such as Man Ray, André Kertész, Robert Capa and Brassaï.

Agence VU also focuses on the photographer as auteur. In photos, publications and exhibitions it highlights the vision of its members, a vision on photography and on the world. Without being limited to one style or genre, VU in this way offers a sampler of photography as individual as it is surprising and probing - and it has been doing so for twenty years now!

The exhibition VU! provides an overview of the work that photographers from VU have produced over the past twenty years. The curator is the Frenchman Robert Delpire, a freelance curator, writer and eminent photo authority. He selected work by almost all the VU photographers, from Philip Blenkinsop (Australia) and Stanley Greene (USA) to Christer Stromhölm (Sweden) and Kadir van Lohuizen (Netherlands).

The exhibition VU! in the Noorderlicht Photogallery was made possible with the support of the Institut Français des Pays-Bas / Antenne de La Haye.

List of photographers participating in VU!:

Michael Ackerman (USA)

Aniu (China)

Jane Evelyn Atwood (USA)

Hicham Benohoud (Marocco)

Jordi Bernadó (Spain)

Alain Bizos (France)

Philip Blenkinsop (Australia)

Agnès Bonnot (France)

Machiel Botman (Netherlands)

Bruno Boudjelal (France, Algeria)

Lorenzo Castore (Italy)

Juan Manuel Castro Prieto (Spain)

Jean-Luc Chapin (France)

Anita Conti (France)

Olivier Coulange (France)

Léa Crespi (France)

Denis Dailleux (France)

Denis Darzacq (France)

Davy (China)

Ad van Denderen (Netherlands)

Pierre-Olivier Deschamps (France)

Bertrand Desprez (France)

Claudine Doury (France)

Richard Dumas (France)

Stéphane Duroy (France)

Michel Vanden Eeckhoudt (Belgium)

JH Engström (Sweden)

Isabelle Eshraghi (Iran)

Bernard Faucon (France)

Gilles Favier (France)

Bo Gao (China)

Stanley Greene (USA)

Zhang Hai-Er (China)

Rip Hopkins (UK)

Graciela Iturbide (Mexico)

Steeve Iunker (Switzerland)

Martin Kollar (Slovenia)

Laurence Leblanc (France)

Adriana Lestido (Spain)

Kadir van Lohuizen (Netherlands)

Krzysztof Miller (Poland)

Olivier Mirguet (France)

Isabel Muñoz (Spain)

José Manuel Navia (Spain)

Ouka Leele (Spain)

Mathieu Pernot (France)

Anders Petersen (Sweden)

Fabrice Picard (France)

Serge Picard (France)

Olivier Pin Fat (Thailand)

José Ramon Bas (Spain)

Anne Rearick (USA)

Gérard Rondeau (France)

David Sauveur (France)

Gotthard Schuh (Switzerland)

Manit Sriwanishpoom (Thailand)

S & P Stanikas (Lithowania)

Christer Strömhölm (Sweden)

Ian Teh (China)

Ricard Terré (Spain)

Guy Tillim (South Africa)

Tshi (Canada)

Lars Tunbjörk (Sweden)

Paolo Verzone (Italy)

Virxilio Vietitez (Spain)

Hugues de Wurstemberger (Switzerland)

Guillaume Zuili (France)

About the curator:

At the age of 23 Robert Delpire started the art journal Neuf, with the support of André Breton, Picasso and Jean-Paul Sartre, among others. In the 1950s he published a series of standard works on photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Doisneau and Robert Frank. In 1963 he opened his gallery, in which he presented work by almost all the great names from the photography world. Delpire has also displayed his talents in producing films and advertising, and he regularly works as a guest curator for museums. In 1980, in cooperation with the International Centre of Photography he organized a large retrospective of Cartier-Bresson. In the 1980s and '90s he was director of the French Centre National de la Photographie, for whom he started the famous Photo Poche collection - a series of paperbacks about photography. He is continuing to work on that series, as well as assembling international photography exhibitions. At the request of Vu Robert Delpire put together the exhibition Vu' 20 ans, which opened in March, 2006, in Galerie Vu in Paris.

About the opener:

Laurence Leblanc (Paris, 1967), trained as a painter and drawer, begins her photography career with a dialogue with music - especially that of Peter Gabriel. She gains national fame in 1998 with her photographic representation of childhood. After winning several photo prizes, she joins Agence Vu in 2001. She distincts herself by personal and poetic reportages, made in countries such as Somalia, India and most of all Cambodja. Most impressive are the portraits of Cambodian children, still marked by the horrors of the Red Khmer era. In her typical style she translates their feelings into spiritual, almost transparent images. Thus is life in countries like Cambodja, says Leblanc: like you are aloowed only half a life.

For more information, visual materials and requests for interviews contact Olaf Veenstra at +31 (0)50 318 22 27 or publicity@noorderlicht.com.

Noorderlicht Photogallery

Akerkhof 12 Groningen, the Netherlands

Tuesday thru Sunday 11:00 am - 6:00 pm

Admission free