Michel Poivert is professor of the history of contemporary art

Contemporary art

Contemporary art can be defined variously as art produced at this present point in time or art produced since World War II. The definition of the word contemporary would support the first view, but museums of contemporary art commonly define their collections as consisting of art produced...

 and photography

Photography

Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...

 at the Sorbonne

University of Paris

The University of Paris was a university located in Paris, France and one of the earliest to be established in Europe. It was founded in the mid 12th century, and officially recognized as a university probably between 1160 and 1250...

. He has taken a special interest in pictorialism

Pictorialism

‎Pictorialism is the name given to a photographic movement in vogue from around 1885 following the widespread introduction of the dry-plate process. It reached its height in the early years of the 20th century, and declined rapidly after 1914 after the widespread emergence of Modernism...

, the subject of his doctorate thesis. From 1995 to 2010, he was president of Société française de photographie

Société française de photographie

The Société française de photographie is an association, founded in 1854, devoted to the history of photography. It has a large collection of photographs and old cameras...

, the French Photography Society.

Career

In 1992, Poivert helped the Société française de photographie

Société française de photographie

The Société française de photographie is an association, founded in 1854, devoted to the history of photography. It has a large collection of photographs and old cameras...

 (SFP) recover from near bankruptcy and became its president in 1995. In 2004, he organized the exhibition "L'Utopie photographique", clearly testifying to the association's new lease of life on the occasion of its 150th anniversary. He has been editor of SFP's magazine, Etudes photographiques, and together with Clément Chéroux, he has participated in building a collection of biographies of contemporary photographers, also published by the SFP. In addition to his teaching and research assignments, he has been effective in promoting the younger generation of French photographers.

Works

• Michel Poivert: "Le pictorialisme en France", Hoëbeke (Paris), 1992.
• Michel Poivert: "La photographie contemporaine", Flammarion (Paris), 2002
• Michel Poivert: "L'image au service de la révolution: photographie, surréalisme, politique", Le Point du jour éd. (Cherbourg), 2006.

In collaboration with Clément Chéroux: Collection de monographies de photographes contemporains, Edition 779, Société française de photographie:

• Mathieu Pernot, L’État des lieux, 2004.
• Gilles Saussier, Le Ruban documentaire, 2003.
• Stanislas Amand, Prose optique, 2002.
• Philippe Durand, Dérives, 2001.
• Éric Rondepierre, Extraits, 2001.
• Arno Gisinger, L’Ordinaire de l’oubli, 2001.
• Charles Fréger, Portraits photographiques et uniformes, 2001.

Exhibitions

Michel Poivert has organized a number of photo exhibitions:

• Le Salon de photographie, le pictorialisme en Europe et aux Etats-Unis", musée Rodin, Paris (1993)
• "Un monde non-objectif en photographie », galerie Thessa Hérold, Paris (2003)
• "L’utopie photographique, 150 ans de la Société française de photographie", Maison Européenne de la photographie, Paris (2004)
• "La Région humaine", Musée d’art contemporain de Lyon (2006)
• "L’Événement, les images comme acteur de l’histoire", Jeu de Paume, Paris (2007)
• "La Subversion des image, surréalisme, photographie, film", Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (2009-2010)