“A good photographic historian must accept changes without reticence, reflect on them and accept the new artistic practices that emerge from them.” Chief curator of photography at the MoMA in New York, Quentin Bajac says he is “resolutely open and focused on contemporary practices,” but doesn’t hide his admiration for the beginnings of this art. His interest for all eras of photography – from the daguerreotype to digital – have punctuated his career and his choices as a curator.

After his studies at the Institut d’Études Politiques then at the École du Patrimoine, Quentin Bajac took on his first position as a curator in the photography department of the Musée d’Orsay, in 1995. In 2007, he became head of the photography unit at the Centre Pompidou. While conducting an active policy of new acquisitions for the contemporary collection, he devised many exhibitions, including “La subversion des images: surréalisme, photographie, film” (2009) and “Dreamlands” (2012). In late 2012, the director of the MoMA, Glenn Lowry, called him to direct the photographic department of the museum.