Isabelle Huppert

Passionate and reserved, distant and yet seemingly close, Isabelle Huppert is unique among contemporary female actors. C/O Berlin is devoting an exhibition to the many-faceted homages to the star, exploring her inspiring roles, her varied career and her mysterious, fleeting nature. Over 70 contemporary photographers—among them Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Frank, Annie Leibovitz, Peter Lindbergh, Nan Goldin and Juergen Teller—have explored the mystery of this French actor, portraying the tension between strength and melancholy she embodies. A sense of the mysterious surrounds Isabelle Huppert. She can be anyone, anywhere; she is a screen onto which we project our own ideas and a blank page; she is characterised by both control and impulsiveness, is hidden, yet open. She offers herself up to the camera’s lens yet remains withdrawn, present and yet absent. The large number of photographs of her, the pictures for which she has posed, never seem to fully capture her. The same image reappears again and again, but always in an altered, re-enacted and varied form. In these portraits, Isabelle Huppert portrays herself as seen through the eyes of another. But apart from exploring the “Isabelle Huppert phenomenon”, these portraits divulge personal characteristics and details of the individual photographers. Documentary, fashion and art photography are all represented; the identical object clearly reveals the differing styles and photographic handwriting of the portraitists.

C/O Berlin presented the exhibition Werkschau, curated by Ronald Chammah and Jeanne Fouchet, for the first time and exclusively in Germany. To accompany the exhibition, Knesebeck Verlag published the photography book "Isabelle Huppert im Porträt".