From top to bottom :

Photomontage de couverture par Marcel Ichac, VU, n°259, 1er mars 1933

Couverture de VU,
n°546, 31 août 1938

Couverture de VU,
n°243, 9 novembre 1932

Photomontage de couverture, VU, n°250, 28 décembre 1932

Double page sur la guerre civile d'Espagne, VU, n°443, 9 septembre 1936

Mise en page de photographies de Schall, VU, n°443, 9 septembre 1936

Mise en page de photographies de Brassaï, VU, n°461, 13 janvier 1937

Double page de VU,
n°546, 31 août 1938

2 November 2006 - 25 February 2007

The illustrated weekly magazine VU ran over 600 issues between 21 March 1928 and 29 May 1940. Many of its special issues caused a sensation when they appeared, including VU au pays des Soviets on Soviet Russia (1931), L'énigme allemande on Germany (1932), Fin d'une civilisation on technology (1933), Interrogatoire de la Chine on China (1934) and VU en Espagne on Spain (1936).

VU spearheaded the media revolution of the 1920s, developing the idea that extensive use of photography could produce an objective view of the world. Like a cinema newsreel on paper, it set out to be the "week's illustrated journal", using photos in all its columns.

Its founder and director was Lucien Vogel, a politically committed man of the press who had already created the Gazette du Bon Ton (1912-1925) and the Jardin des modes (1922). Vogel was himself a photographer and often acted as a photo-reporter for his own magazine. His support for the Spanish Republicans in 1936 led to his dismissal.

VU covered a varied, even eclectic range of subjects including politics and world affairs, social and moral issues, discoveries, disasters, exploration, the arts, sport, entertainment, and the surprising or unusual. It made systematic use of pictures, promising its readers "pages crammed with photographs" and "sensational illustrated features".

VU set itself apart in 1928 by using what it called "photographic reportage", publishing sets of photographs on a predefined subject taken by a single photographer. It also made use of photomontage as a vehicle for pointed political or social criticism, in particular under the leadership of Alexandre Liberman, who was art director from 1932 and had worked with Cassandre, who designed the VU logo.

The printing technique known as rotogravure provided page designers with more creative leeway and gave new power to the photographs themselves thanks to the way they could be laid out and composed dynamically across double-page spreads.

Rotogravure also meant that tonal values could be rendered more effectively than ever before, producing high-quality brown and blue tones for pictures by freelance photographers including Kertész, Man Ray, Krull, Lotar and Brassaï as well as those produced by international photo agencies. Looking back on all this we see a cutting-edge editorial approach that makes most of today's weekly magaziners pale into insignificance.

VU put a high premium on photography as an informational medium: its editors held that "text explains, but photos provide proof". By covering the walls with pictures, the exhibition Regarder VU invites the viewer to reflect on the validity of this phrase, which has become a slogan for modern society. VU was where the modern status of photography-in-the-media was first established; it was where pictures first took precedence over words, and where text was relegated to the role of mere commentary or additional information. This explains why the VU agency created twenty years ago used the magazine's name, as a tribute to its fundamental contribution to press photography.

The exhibition is arranged on two floors of the MEP in four independent areas, and displays original issues of the magazine totalling over 600 pages. Each area shows how photographers and publishers gradually became aware of the potential of photography and established today's standards of media performance. Each wall explores a particular domain relating to VU's key role: page layout, the portrayal of faces, the development of reportage, the sensationalism of pictures, its analysis of the situation in Germany, attractive cover design (using photomontage and colour), the regular use of unusual or amazing photographs, etc. The exhibition sets out to display a very large number of pictures whilst avoiding superficiality, giving the visitor an insight into how a whole media system came into being.

Curators: Michel Frizot, research director at the CNRS, photography historian, and Cédric de Veigy, researcher and professor of photography and film.
Jointly produced with the Musée Nicéphore Niépce in Chalon-sur-Saône, owner of the magazine collection, where the exhibition will be shown in March 2007.

Public discussion : a public discussion is scheduled with curators Michel Frizot and Cédric de Veigy. For further details see "Events/Events organized by the MEP Cultural Service".

Guided Visits : Visits are available for groups, individual visitors, teachers, school groups, and children. For further details, see "Events/Guided Visits".Cédric de Veigy. For further details see "Events/Events organized by the MEP Cultural Service".