"He wasn't a trigger-happy man, he was a man of the present": in Urrugne, an exhibition in tribute to photojournalist Jacques Pavlovsky

The Vietnam War, the China Sea, the Iraqi dictatorship... In Urrugne, a retrospective pays tribute to photojournalist Jacques Pavlovsky, originally from Saint-Jean-de-Luz and who became one of the great figures of war photography. Entitled "Life and Chaos," the exhibition is on display until September 18.

"Life and Chaos" is a title that reflects his life. A pioneer of French photojournalism, Jacques Pavlovsky traveled the globe with the Sygma press agency, through which he covered numerous humanitarian and political crises since 1970. "In the chaos of war, there is always an incredible thirst for life," the photographer taught at a first exhibition held in Urrugne in 2018, before passing away five years later, at the age of 92.

Son of the architect André Pavlovsky , who designed the lighthouses of Saint-Jean-de-Luz and Ciboure, he discovered photography at the age of 7, in his father's laboratory. Until September 18, the town hall of Urrugne is paying him a final tribute at the Posta gallery , where around thirty of his most emblematic photographs are on display.

The last look of an Iranian prisoner sentenced to torture, the deserted streets of Saigon after the end of the Vietnam War, the first major portrait of Saddam Hussein... An "eclectic" but "fundamental" proposal, put forward by Damien Boyer, communications officer for the City of Urrugne, himself passionate about photojournalism and sensitive to the "memory" transmitted by the photographer. "Today, we say that the world is going completely to hell," he confides, "but these photos remind us that it has always been extremely violent. Every time a war ends, we say 'never again'. Yet, it continues."

Already at the helm of the 2018 exhibition, Damien Boyer spoke with the photographer several times, learning the stories behind each of his works. This valuable expertise he willingly shares with visitors, driven by the desire to "provoke emotions" and "arouse their curiosity" about the art of photography, which he has fervently championed since his arrival at the town hall fifteen years ago.

“With artificial intelligence, we are seeing more and more image manipulation and daily disinformation.”

"With artificial intelligence, we are seeing more and more image manipulation and daily disinformation," points out the man who has already honored Doisneau , Depardon , Lartigue , Salgado and other big names in photography. "It seems important to me to return to a type of field journalism like this and to pay tribute to a profession that is disappearing." This is why, in 2023, thanks to the support of the town hall, Damien Boyer founded Les Rencontres d'Inpakt : a festival in tribute to documentary photographers sensitive to environmental issues.

"The goal was to bring art into our public spaces," emphasizes Age Leijenaar, Urrugne's deputy for culture for the past five years, who supports the display of photos on the town's pediment and along the departmental road. "It didn't please some local residents," he notes, "but it allowed us to reach an audience that wouldn't normally go to see an exhibition, and to build a cultural reputation in Urrugne, of which we are very proud."

In the Posta room this Friday morning, Chantal Dewatre, a so-called "very regular" visitor, came accompanied by her two grandchildren, Maguelonne and Venance. "Look at that one," points out the pensioner, stopping in front of the portrait of Jean-Bedel Bokassa , "you can see all the madness of the character!" She stops a few meters further on, in front of Simone de Beauvoir, then Jean-Paul Belmondo.

More intrigued by the stories from the war zone, the two young people carefully read the small cards under each photograph. "I didn't know this photographer," confides Venance, a design student, his eyes fixed on the image of an Iranian prisoner. "There are plenty of details to focus on," he explains, "the scratches on the wall, the enormous size of the padlock, and this small, dark window, not centered, almost insignificant, through which the prisoner is looking at us... It's quite chilling."

In the center of the room, Jacques Pavlovsky's original Nikon and its 24x36 lens sit proudly in a glass case alongside his brown canvas travel bag, on which he carefully inscribed the address of his house in Urrugne. A detail that particularly moved Vincent, his youngest son. "He was a very good storyteller," he says. "All that mattered to him was the transmission of information, not the aesthetics of the photo."

Before his death, Jacques Pavlovsky was taking pictures with an iPhone 6 and had started writing an unfinished book, which his son Vincent, now a real estate developer, vows to finish. "He wasn't a trigger-happy man," he says, "he was a man of the present."

While waiting for the publication of Jacques Pavlovsky's stories by his son, Damien Boyer continues to honor press photography through the work of Julien Goldstein and Robin Tutenges . In a completely different scenography, the exhibition entitled " Skate and Counter-Culture " can be discovered free of charge on the Bixikenea estate, until August 29.