In the Face of Silence
Christophe Agou
Dewi Lewis Publishing
Text by John Berger
English
144 pages, 77 colour photographs
240mm x 290mm
Hardback
ISBN: 978-1-907893-04-9
In The Face Of Silence is a powerful and moving portrait of the hard lives of French family farmers living and working in the Forez region, on the eastern side of the Massif Central.
Born and brought up in the area, photographer Christophe Agou travelled to the less-known parts of the region, where he felt inspired by the silence and moved by the authenticity and charisma of the people he encountered. Over time, and through the gradual process of building trust and friendship, the farmers and their families accepted him and allowed him to both photograph and film their daily existence. The challenge was to go beyond just documenting their labour-intensive lives and present a deeper, more intimate portrait. The resultant work is a meditation on life and death as well as the silence and solitude that are ever-present in our lives.
About the Artist:
Winner of the 2010 European Publishers Award for Photography, Christophe Agou, is noted for his personal documentary-style in both black-and-white and colour photography. His intimate images both haunt and intrigue – and create an intensely rich, layered, visual language that triggers thoughts and emotions.
Christophe Agou moved to New York in 1992 and came to prominence with his compelling body of work made in the New York subway – published as ‘Life Below’ in 2004. He was a finalist for the prestigious Eugene Smith Award (2006), for Le Prix de la Photographie de l’Académie des Beaux-Arts de Paris (2008) and received a ‘Mention Spéciale’ for le Prix Kodak de la Critique Photographique (2009). His photographs have been widely published and exhibited including shows at MOMA, New York; Jeu de Paume, Paris; Museum of Fine Arts in Houston; Les Rencontres D’Arles, France and Noorderlicht Fotofestival, The Netherlands.
Artist Website
About the Author:
John Berger, art critic, novelist, painter and author, was the 1972 winner of the Booker Prize with his novel G. His book on art criticism, Ways of Seeing, is recognised as one of the seminal texts on the subject.
About the Publisher:
Dewi Lewis Publishing is a partnership owned and run by Caroline Warhurst and Dewi Lewis.
Founded in 1994, its photography list has an international reputation and includes books by leading British and international photographers such as William Klein, Martin Parr, Simon Norfolk, Fay Godwin, Tom Wood, Sergio Larrain, Frank Horvat, John Blakemore, Paolo Pelegrin and Bruce Gilden. The aim of the company is to bring to the attention of a wider public, accessible but challenging contemporary photography by both established and lesser known practitioners. The company has a worldwide distribution network and is recognised as one of the leading photographic publishers in the world. It publishes around 20 new titles each year.
Publisher Website
