25.09.21 - 16.01.22
Chloé Clément. Betula
As part of their partnership, the Belgian newspaper Le Soir and the Museum of Photography have launched La Galerie du Soir. At the same time as each new major exhibition by the Museum, La Galerie du Soir introduces a young artist to be discovered. A wager on the future that has four components: a small but significant exhibition display in the Museum, a portfolio in the magazine Photographie Ouverte, a presentation of the photographer in the pages of Le Soir and a selection of the photographer’s work on the site www.lesoir.be.
For this new edition of La Galerie du Soir, we chose Chloé Clément.
“I don’t at all come from a background close to art or photography,” says Chloé Clément, “but I have always been making photos. When I was a kid, I used to photograph everything with a small, disposable camera. Next, I had a small digital camera and I was once again taking pictures of everything I saw. Thousands of pictures. I really loved it.” Nonetheless, the young girl never at all imagined that she would turn that passion into a job. She continued her studies in the Humanities until the fifth year where, she says coyly, “I didn’t have enough to go on to sixth form.” While she was wondering about the way forward, a friend suggested that she should join her in a technical college in Ath, where photography was on the curriculum. “I said to myself: why not? And I went there. I was a fast learner and two years later, I left school with a photo technician diploma. At the time, I was mainly attracted by fashion photography; the perfect, beautiful photo. That is what we used to learn. Those studies focused entirely on the technical aspect and not at all on creativity. But at the end of my studies, my training supervisor encouraged me to go to the open days at La Cambre. The Open Days were being organised a few days later and I discovered the work of one of the students, Joséphine Desmenez (Ed.: exhibited at La Galerie du Soir in 2017). I loved it. I took the entrance examination and I got accepted.”
