Pierre Cordier

On November 10, 1956, writing a dedication with nail polish on photographic paper to a young German woman named Erika, Pierre Cordier discovered what he later called the chemigram.

This technique, which "combines the physics of painting (varnish, oil, wax) and the chemistry of photography (photosensitive emulsion, developer, and fixer), without the use of a camera or enlarger, and in full light",[3] became for him a source of experiments and a plastic language.

At a time when artistic photography was not really accepted in Europe, the exhibition he had (with Denis Brihat and Jean-Pierre Sudre) at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in 1967 was a major event.

His meeting with Aaron Siskind in 1977 was crucial: this great American photographer became his spiritual father and introduced him to many important figures in the New Bauhaus circle of Chicago.

Arising from hybrid techniques, the work of Pierre Cordier has always been difficult to classify, and raises the question of affiliation from an art-historical point of view.