Misr. L’Égypte de Denis Dailleux

Misr is the Arabic name for Egypt.

Since 1992, Denis Dailleux has been tirelessly photographing this country, taking an interest in both the bustle of Cairo’s working-class neighbourhoods and the tranquillity of Upper and Lower Egypt. His total immersion – he lived in Cairo for many years – gave him access to scenes of daily life, in the street, in cafés or on the banks of the Nile, to family or religious celebrations, but also – and this is more rare – to the intimate sphere of Egyptians, which he was able to capture with a powerful and generous aesthetic, penetrating their interiors.

This book, which is presented as an important monograph, brings together Denis Dailleux’s most emblematic Egyptian photographs, which have often been published and exhibited throughout the world, as well as previously unpublished images rediscovered for the occasion. It brings together black and white photographs (corresponding to his first reportage in the country in 1992) and colour images, colour having subsequently become his preferred mode of expression. Also published are some photographs from his series “Martyrs of the Revolution”, “Mothers and Sons” and “Tuk-tuk”.

Denis Dailleux photographs with a 6×6 (square) camera, which gives his work great coherence. He has also remained attached to film photography. The thousands of photographs he has taken in Egypt (130 of which are published here) constitute an exceptional testimony to the popular culture of this country and, as Christian Caujolle writes in a text accompanying the images, an “absolute alternative to all the cultural and tourist clichés that clutter our minds.