Daniel Pype

  • Selected Works

    Nights at the Louvre

    "In 1987, I spent some time at the Louvre as a night watchman, invested in the study and practice of Western and Eastern spirituality, putting professional photography aside for a while.
    As destiny had it, I was captivated by the works during my nightly rounds through the shows. The presence, strength and beauty that emanated from them. The works, in silence and without lighting, were imbued with emotion, truth, and a presence that I had not known before. In the darkness, the beam of my lamp revealed faces, looks, and landscapes; a story began to take shape. In front of the paintings and sculpture, shaped by the darkness and light, I used my 35mm camera, photographing with ambient light that came from lampposts and evenings of full moon outside of the Louvre. The exposures were long using a tripod and film as in the early days of photography. These negatives, stored in envelopes, followed me during my many moves as something precious. And almost 30 years later, I presented them in 2016 to Pierre Rosenberg, former Director and Curator of the Louvre Museum, who encouraged me to share them. I will never forget his enthusiasm and support of this vision.

    Why return in 2017?
    The new Louvre was unknown to me so I wanted to come back and try to discover, 30 years later, if my original feelings in this new space had also evolved with time.The Directors of the Louvre generously allowed for this new investigation.

    At night, the artworks tell another story."

    Daniel Pype

  • Biography

    Biography

    France, 1949 ,

    Passionate about art, he has collaborated notably with the magazine Connaissance des Arts, as well as the magazine l'Art Vivant published by Galerie Maeght. Subsequently, he spent two years at the Pompidou Center before joining a Parisian advertising agency. He also photographed various events, such as the centennial of Marcel Duchamp's birth in 1987 and worked on several reports, such as The One Who Comes, a book that includes more than one hundred photographs by André Malraux. Daniel Pype also produced many portraits of artists, writers and musicians from 1965 to the present day.

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  • Exhibitions