DOSSIER PHOTO INFLUENCES ET FIGURES Individuals and SINGULIÈRES Influences

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Without being one of its official themes, American photography is very much to the fore at this November’s Mois de la Photo in Paris. Garry Winogrand is on show at Jeu de Paume (to February 8, 2015), and William Eggleston is at the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson (through December 21), while Paris Photo (November 13–16, Grand Palais), which in recent years has been showcasing public and private collections to interesting effect, is hosting not only the Alkazi collection from India, but also recent acquisitions of work by American photographers from MoMA. All of which reminds us of the enthusiasm with which American photography was greeted in the 1960s and 70s, following on from American literature, music and cinema. In this issue Gilles Mora, a great intermediary between the U.S. and France, traces its extensive and diverse influence on photographers in Europe and the way it helped to free them. In a very different register, this issue also considers the work of two other figures exhibited this November: Alix Cléo Roubaud (Bibliothèque Nationale de France, October 28, 2014–February 1, 2015) and Michel Houellebecq (Pavillon Carré de Baudouin, November 12, 2014–January 31, 2015). What they share is a movement between writing and photography, and a questioning of the relations between these two disciplines.