We were so saddened this week to hear from Christian Bonifas, one half of the photobooth art duo Les Matons, that his partner Hélène Fabre passed away on December 8 at the age of 56.
For nearly thirty years, Les Matons created a huge body of work based on photobooth photographs, which culminated in a final exhibition at the Bibliothèque de Carré d’Art in their home city of Nîmes, France, in October 2019.
In addition to their immense creative work and publication, Hélène and Christian have been some of the most steadfast and prolific contributors to Photobooth.net, beginning shortly after I first corresponded with them in 2007.
We owe them a huge debt of gratitude, and send our heartfelt best wishes to Christian.
A piece in Nîmes Gazette Live touches on Hélène’s life and contributions. In translation,
Half of Les Matons is no more. Wednesday, December 8, Hélène Fabre died suddenly at the age of 56. With Christian Bonifas, Hélène formed Les Matons from 1988 to 2017, a duo of artists using photobooths as a means of expression.
“Their work is both simple and poetic. Their photos are fueled by objects, props, and clothing. There is a real aesthetic and joy,” commented gallery owner Pascal Adoue de Nabias at a retrospective in May 2019.
That same year, the Carré d’Art library presented their work as part of the 20th anniversary of Documentary Film Month.
At La Gazette, where she wrote the exhibition pages and part of the cultural agenda for twenty years, Hélène leaves a void much larger than her discreet presence.
Her funeral will take place on Wednesday, December 15th at 4pm at the crematorium of Nîmes.
I was lucky to have met Christian and Hélène at the Derriere le rideau exhibition in Lausanne, Switzerland, in February of 2012, where we took the somewhat poorly executed photostrip at right.