Portrait genius, French by origin but based in Madrid since 1988late this Sunday he died Pierre Gonnord to the 60 atas confirmed on their social profiles by the Reina Sofa Museum. “He has been a key photographer in the appreciation of photography as a means of criticizing representation in contemporary art, an artist known for his continued presence in Spain, resident in Madrid and with regular exhibitions in Juana de Aizpuru, describes the tribute of the art gallery in X (before, Twitter).
A self-taught photographer, he moved to Spain at the end of the 80s and began a project in 1998 focused on human faces. He first made a sequence of portraits of Western citizens, about his urban youth: Interiors (Madrid, 1999) and then City (New York, 2001). In the following years he made the series Regards (2000-2003), Far East (Japn, 2003) y Utpicos (2004-2005), where he chose an approach to characters marginalized by society and photographed them in close-ups: they were vagabonds, prisoners, crazy or blind, but also monks, geishas, members of urban gangs. He has done the same with people from gypsy groups or people who have experienced the tragedy of the Balkans and North Africa (Witnesses).
His work has been exhibited in various cities in Spain, France, Portugal and the United States. In Spain his work is present in the art gallery of Juana de Aizpuru. He has exhibited in multiple public and private galleries, such as the Conde Duque Cultural Centerthe European House of Photography in Parisin it Museum of Fine Arts of Sevillein the University of Salamancain it University of Navarra Museumin it Forges Workshop, Les Recontres dArlesin it FRAC Auvergne-Ecuries de Chazerat, Clermont Ferrand; in it Helsinki Photo Festival and in Oslo.
He National Museum Reina Sofa Art Centerwho has confirmed his death on social networks, also has his work.
One of his latest appearances is related to a photography book published in October 2017, 50 photographs with history. 50 authors participate in this book, among them, Pierre Gonnord, who highlights “how beautiful it is that each photographer can record an emotion, an intimate moment, because we work with that, with the emotion and fragility of human beings.” The author explains that photography collects “our concerns and concerns, and with them we develop a language that makes up the visual culture, represented in this book.”
He sparked some controversy in 2021 when he was chosen by the Ministry of the Presidency to make the portrait of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero to exhibit in the gallery of former presidents of the Government in the Moncloa Palace. The amount of the contract, 35,000 euros plus VAT, was considered excessive by the opposition – and a good part of public opinion – for a photography, but the choice of the artist was by no means accidental.
