PARIS, FRANCE.- Centre national de la photographie presents today “Fables de l’identité”, Works from NSM Vie/ABN AMRO Collection, on view through August 25, 2003. For the fifth of its annual presentations of corporate collections, the Cnp is presenting a selection of works held by NSM Vie/ABN AMRO.



The collection amassed in recent years by NSM Vie and its parent company, the NSMD bank, now numbers over 600 works. The main thematic orientation of these contemporary photographs and videos is identity.



This collection is part of NSMD’s patronage program which supports artists and institutions, providing backing for cultural events and publishing initiatives in the fields of the arts and heritage.



Whether studio photographs, furtive snapshots or personal fictions, these works reflect the complexity of contemporary work on the representation of the human face. Thus the collection has gradually extended its range from the « classical » portraits it acquired at first to include all those aspects of contemporary art that bring into play the human face and the question of identity. The results can be pretty surprising. The collection offers a whole range of approaches to the image and, by the same token, to the portrait. This cannot be limited to the representation of the face, nor indeed of an individual. Some portraits show only fragments of bodies, or even of objects. Here, the subject is grasped through a set of fictions.



This exhibition presents a selection of these fictions and fables, thereby putting together an original itinerary through the collection. The exhibition will also offer a view of new works. The Cnp’s l’Atelier will focus on one or several commissions or pieces specially acquired by NSM Vie for the exhibition.



Côté Jardin: an artist’s work, also commissioned by NSM Vie, will be displayed on a sheet hung on the railings around the Hôtel Salomon de Rothschild.