Sylvie Vartan and Mike Jagger in the heart of the 60's © Jean-Marie Périer

The Roof of the Grande Arche in La Défense will host one of Jean-Marie Périer's largest retrospective exhibitions. More than 300 photos, of which 1/3 are unseen that the photographer has never shared until now, will make “Souvenirs d'Avenir” the flagship exhibition of the start of the year. The fruit of 40 years of passion will thus be exhibited in the 1200 m2 cultural space of the Roof of the Grande Arche The opportunity to find new photos of Johnny, Sylvie, Françoise, Sheila, the Rolling Stones, Marianne Faithfull, the Beatles … But also Jean Paul Gaultier, Yves Saint Laurent, Tom Ford…

There are few places in France, and particularly in Paris, that can offer a space of this size for an exhibition with no other ambition than to be popular. I therefore thank the company City One 111 for making the 1.200 square meters of these rooms available to my work.

This retrospective presents more than 300 prints from the two periods in which, thanks to photography, I was able to mix with or live with exceptional artists, both in the world of music and in that of fashion.

Luckily, a year ago I recovered my archives, which allowed me to review them with a fresh eye. As a result, a third of the images presented are new.

The 60 years

Exposing your photos is a great privilege, but the reasons for doing so can be multiple, egos, the desire for fame or even the recognition of your peers, I only have one: to please people . This is why I always try to show as many images as possible, so that whoever loves only one artist may have a chance to see it. Because I know it well, in France as in the world, those who come to my exhibitions are often there to find their youth. (If I had only immortalized beautiful bouquets of flowers, I am not convinced that people would come for my "immense" talent.) Others want to dream of an era they did not know, moved by nostalgia for a time imbued with freedom, recklessness and lost naivety.

It was a blessed time when I was seriously working on things that I thought were not.

My luck is to have met Daniel Filipacchi, the inventor of the newspaper "Hello friends". Thanks to him, for twelve years, I had no limits of means and an unrestricted freedom. I could offer anything that came to my mind, no artist has ever refused me anything, or even asked to see a photo before its publication. The confidence they granted me was total and my goal was to highlight them in order to allow the adolescents of France in the 60s to decorate their rooms with images of these artists with whom they felt so close by being so far. It must be said that before my goal I had only young and beautiful faces. We were the same age, but it was they who took me on their adventure and I do not forget that all would have succeeded without me, while I, without them ...

The era was light, as Eddie Barclay said: “We did more show than business”

Yesterday did not count, tomorrow did not exist, there was only today.

The 90 years

After ten years in the United States making commercials, I was starting to miss France seriously when my sister Anne-Marie called me from Paris. "You just have to become a photographer again. Come find me ... ”Indeed, she ran the newspaper“ ELLE ”for over twenty years. And that's how I got back to the studios to work with fashion people. Curiously, the rockers having become fathers of families, the new rock stars were the dressmakers. Nobody lived like Yves Saint Laurent, Karl Lagerfeld or Jean Paul Gaultier. They quickly accepted me and I immediately found the same freedom that I enjoyed in the 60s.

Indeed the fashion world being in love with freedom and love of art, I could plunge back into my habits of staged photos. Reality having never been my domain, I climbed myself with pleasure into the world of dressmakers because to the fantasy and insolence of musicians they added an obsession with taste and elegance. This exhibition therefore retraces the two periods of my life as a photographer, the 60s on the one hand, the 90s on the other. I don't know if it will make a work, but in any case it was worth living.

Jean Marie Perier

Pratical information

Open every day from 10 a.m. to 19 p.m., last climb at 18 p.m.
Access included in the price of the visit to the roof of the Grande Arche: from 7 to 15 €
Information on www.lagrandearche.fr
Group reservation: billetterie@lagrandearche.fr and usual points of sale