PHILIPPE CHANCEL ET VALERIE WEILL

Philippe Chancel

Born 1959 at Issy–les–Moulineaux, lives in Paris.


For over twenty years now Philippe Chancel's photography has been investigation the shifting, richly complex terrain between art, documentary and journalism. Initiated early into the discipline by a photo-reporter, he began with snaps of everyday urban and housing-estate life, studying economics and photojournalism before opting for photography at age twenty-two and seeing his reportages from Eastern Europe published in numerous international magazines. He then began working in the visual communication field, while taking his first photos of artists. These latter premiered at the Mois de la Photo festival in Paris in 1990.

Then came a period of new media exploration, which involved putting photography on hold and making documentaries, with a return to his roots in 1995. In recent years he has looked into all areas of contemporary creativity, and now works for magazines like Connaissance des Arts, cultural institutions and publishing houses. His work has been shown and published in France and abroad, notably Souvenirs, his collaboration with Valérie Weill. DPRK, his vision of North Korea, is being shown for the first time at the Rencontres d'Arles and will appear in book form in October 2006, published by Thames & Hudson.

Valérie Weill

After working in fashion with the designer Dries Van Noten, Valérie Weill is today a fashion designer photographer for the periodic and daily press (Le Monde, Citizen K, Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, Biba…).

London in Store

Following the same format as the cult hit Paris in Store, this quirky look at 100 of London’s offbeat shops and shop windows is a delightful record of a disappearing world, a refreshing counterpoint to the increasingly globalized, world of 21st-century shops and shopping experiences.

This snapshot of authentic, non-corporate London Features a wide range of businesses, from the mainstream – Agent Provocateur and Lamborghini – to the defiantly idiosyncratic, for example taxidermists ‘Get Stuffed’ and Miss Hughes’s sweetie stall at Spitalfields Market. This is a picture of London as the city is today-but it is also a recaord of a disappearing world that is fast being replaced by the uniformity of the high street and the ubiquity of the chainstore.

New York in store

Here is a quirky look at one hundred of New York’s offbeat shops and shop windows, from such Manhattan mainstays as Macy’s and Katz’s Delicatessen to the idiosyncratic, including the 99¢ store on East 14th Street, or Dr Rico Perez’s drugstore in the Bronx.

At a time when much of New York is succumbing to the uniformity of the mall, these are the shops that are bucking the trend.