Patrick Tourneboeuf

Born in 1966 in Paris, Patrick Tourneboeuf is co-founder of the Tendance Floue collective, created in 1991.
He works on the meticulous observation of the banal, of its light imprints, practically impalpable, erased by time. If his subjects of study are numerous, they are all distinguished by their fine and thoughtful perception of the relationship between man and his environment. Since the 1990s, he has been studying the common places of urban space, with the series Périphérique and Nulle Part. His photographic approach seeks to trace the human presence on sites linked to history. Several series thus question our places of memory and the fixing of the stigmata of the past, including the series La Cicatrice, on the traces of the Berlin Wall and La Mémoire du Jour D, on the D-Day landing beaches. Patrick Tourneboeuf also responds to commissions from public institutions such as the Grand Palais, the Château de Versailles and the Théâtre National de l'Odéon.

In Deauville, as part of the Planche(s) Contact festival

In the continuity of his Monumental series realized on the places of memory, Patrick Tourneboeuf was invited to Deauville for an immersion within the Normandy hotel.
Thanks to a systematic vision exceeding by its plasticity the simple documentary, Patrick Tourneboeuf delivers a singular and curious glance, on the most famous hotel of Deauville. He questions its present and past identity, through the prism of its recent renovation, but also in relation to its sociological and historical changes. Conceived as an interior quest, this work consists less of a pure documentary than of a sensitive, almost carnal approach to the memory of the establishment.

Patrick Tourneboeuf about his exhibition The inner journey from the room to the antechamber: Hôtel Barrière Le Normandy:
"Here I am immersed in the liner Le Normandy, this monumental establishment stranded on the Normandy shore, marked by its history since 1912.
It's an interior journey that offers itself to me, a stay of contemplation where I let myself slip into the muffled spirit of the intimacy of the spaces, passing from my room to the antechamber, stigmatizing the obvious in order to capture the ordinary. Which in my case, means capturing the spirit of these places, similar to the wake left by the comings and goings of men, stealthily leaving traces. I venture into the blurred regions where the thresholds between public and private seem to hesitate, where any stay can only be temporary.

In this intimate eight-clos, I meet in the early mornings the beds unmade by temporary passengers, I wander in the back of the decor for some details of kitchen utensils, uniforms or linens at rest. Obstinately, I observe the infinite perspectives of the colored corridors echoing the ship's passageways.
Even the chimney outlets on the roof remind us of the notion of a cruise, as if we were sailing at night towards other horizons... And the sea, the beach, the night that marks with an exclamation point the last word of this story. I let myself go, without return."