CATHERINE VIDROVITCH

To Martine Barrat, photography is just like the air we all breathe. As an artist, she sees and she feels; her presence is undeniable, yet she knows how not to be seen to better capture the truth of her subjects.

Photography is the passion and craft she has devoted her entire life to. Her photos and her videos fascinate us, thrill us. Indeed, she has always had a knack for feeling at home in all the places she decides to visit, and for being immediately embraced by people. Moreover, there is a sense of continuity in her work. This can be seen for instance in her representation of La Goutte d’Or, a neighborhood she has first come in contact with in 1982. In fact, she never fails to revisit this place each time she comes to Paris, leaving temporarily behind her New York City hideout where she keeps on fighting for her friends from Harlem and the Bronx through the pictures she takes.

Her portraits — for she likes above all portraits, individual portraits, portraits of couples or group portraits — reflect the true nature of her subjects and not just her own personal truth. Through them, we get to know people from the neighbourghood, on their own terms and at their own rhythm, at night or in the daytime, in cafés, with their family, or at play. She is skilled at inviting us into intimate moments between a mother and her daughter, or when Mohamed helps old Mrs. Lulu cross the street. She excels foremost at letting us take a peek at children’s true happiness: in spite of their living conditions, they are smiling, anxious, mocking, lost in meditation, and, in all seasons, full of screaming life. Eyes sparkling, they play in the courtyard, on the stairs, on the street; they play with a busted armchair or old cardboxes, in a vacant lot that turns for the occasion into a soccer heaven; and how joyfully the ride a precious bike!

In her pictures, we see those rainbow children grow up. One of them is Martine’s friend Mamadou whom she met when he was a small child — on a wooden horse he had found on the street — and who later on blossomed doing humanitarian work. We see them grow old too, the Germa couple for instance, with their five children and the grandmother who just landed from Algiers. Young people can be seen too, chatting on the street: here and there, one of them is caught scolding his young sibling.

Martine’s mojo? She loves them all, the young Mamadou, the old ladies, the teen experiencing her last veil-less day, her friend Malika, the young and wistful Sylvie who OD’d, and Mamadou’s father who posed between his two wives. Her images, from the most upsetting to the most joyful, brim with love. 

Taken in La Goutte d’Or just like elsewhere, her pictures contain a beautiful, deep lesson in humanity.

Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch

Emerita Professor, University Paris-Diderot

Commander of the Legion of Honour

(Transl. by Sylvie Kandé)