Archive for the ‘photography’ Category
Old Masters get the Rancinan treatment
METAMORPHOSES, natures mortes et conversations opened this week for a whistle-stop show at the Palais de Tokyo, in Paris’ 16th arrondissement. If you’re a fan of David LaChapelle‘s larger-than-life still-lives (see my earlier post), don’t miss.
The event is a collaboration between French photographer, Gérard Rancinan and writer, Caroline Gaudriault.
Pietà on the runway
Caravaggio's The Entombment of Christ
Even if you don’t know them from Adam and Eve, you won’t be slow to clock their inspiration.Rancinan’s ironic mise-en-scenes take an backward glance at the works of Da Vinci, Caravaggio, Delacroix, Matisse and others.
The references, however, are pure 21st century.
Take The Last Supper, transmogrified into The Big Supper (below, detail). (Rancinan and his team crossed the Pond for his cast of size XXXL disciples…)
Eat up, you're at Uncle Sam's....
Meanwhile, in Las Meninas, Rancinan’s homage Velasquez, a grotesque troupe of tattooed and latex-clad handmaidens wait on a primped and lurid Marilyn. Er, eternal youth, anyone?
You’ll need to be quick to catch the exhibition. Metamorphoses is in Paris until 6 December 2009 – but is expected then to make NY and London appearances.
Below: Rancinan’s Raft (after Géricault’s masterpiece). See it being made here.
Paris: JR – “Women are Heroes”
[français en bas]
IF YOU MISSED JR at the Tate Modern this summer, here’s a second chance to catch the photographer working his larger-than-life magic on city facades. And yes, Women are Heroes is pretty unmissable.
It took days to cover the quayside along the Ile Saint-Louis (4th); the results are stunning.
An audioguide (tel. 028 55 200 89, calls charged at France’s local rate) lets you hear women from Brazil, India, Cambodia and Kenya tell it in their own words -though in the end the images speak louder.
- “Women are Heroes”, from the Hotel de Ville to the Quai de Bourbon, 4th arrondissement, until 2nd November ’09.
The eyes have it
SI VOUS L’AVEZ raté au Tate Modern à Londres, voici une deuxième occasion de rencontrer des portraits gigantesques du photographe JR.
70 femmes de quatre continents ornent les quais du 4e. Cueillis des favellas de Rio et des bidonvilles de Nairobi, les portraits leur rendent un bel hommage.
Un audioguide (tél 028 55 200 89, tarif local) vous permet d’entendre les paroles des femmes photographiées, bien que les images soient plus loquaces.
- “Women are Heroes” -Paris 4e, jusqu’au 2 novembre ’09.
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David LaChapelle @ La Monnaie de Paris
Deluge © David LaChapelle
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I LOVE this overblown, tongue-in-cheek epic by David LaChapelle. Caesar’s Palace totters into the briny, Gucci, Burger King and Starbucks are already sunk. Not even mobile phones can save these shipwrecked specimens.
“Deluge” is one of nearly 200 works by the American cult photographer currently showing in the august rooms of the Monnaie de Paris (11, quai de Conti, 6e, Metro Pont-Neuf, entry 10 euros).
LaChapelle manages to have it all ways, prodding away at the candy floss of pop culture while simultaneously inviting us to drool. Ignore the keen young exhibition guides trilling over Michelangelo references. Just savour. It’s huge fun and in town until 31 May. * ** * * **
J’adore cette grande fresque ironique et surchargée de David LaChapelle. Caesar’s Palace chancèle sur le point d’être submergé. Gucci, BurgerKing et Starbucks sont déjà perdus, quant aux victimes, leurs portables ne peuvent même plus les sauver dorénavant. “Déluge” est l’une des quelque 200 oeuvres exposées à la Monnaie de Paris (22, quai de Conti, Metro Pont Neuf, tarif: 10 euros) jusqu’au 31 mai à l’occasion de la rétrospective de David LaChapelle.
Avec son art, le photographe culte américain exploite astucieusement la ficelle de la culture pipole. Ne vous en faites pas trop pour son côté métaphysique et ses allusions à Michelange. À savourer simplement – c’est d’une frivolité sublime.
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Hi Bitch Bye Bitch © David LaChapelle
Paris: Avedon, at last
Au Jeu de Paume
You’d think the French would have been falling over the man who revolutionised fashion photography in the ’50s, wouldn’t you?
Turning his back on all those daft studio poses, Richard Avedon stuck Suzy Parker on roller skates, and a Dior-draped Dovima between real elephants at the Cirque d’Hiver. But no, this is the first ever expo on Avedon. Too commercial, you see. Anyway, here he is at last, redeemed among French intellos by virtue of his later, “serious” work. The show embraces the full canon of his work, from fashion shoots to his astonishing portraits of everyday people, In the American West.
In his commercial guise, Avedon was hired by just about everyone in high society. He caught Marilyn Monroe, pensive, in the blink between giggle and pout. The Duke of Windsor and Wallace Simpson drip disappointment from every pore. The exhibition blurb manages to be both gracious and sniffy about these portraits. Despite earning pots of money, it explains, Avedon “never sought to please – quite the contrary.” Seek to please? Be well paid for pleasing? Quel horreur!
In the American West, though, was an intensely personal project for Avedon. In his fashion shoot years, he once said he rarely saw beauty in a young face. That rings true of his portrait of the freckle-faced girl from Rocky Ford, Colorado, her gaze old beyond her 12 years. Likewise, the striking photograph of the 13 year-old rattlesnake skinner, who holds up his stock in trade, entrails and all. These images – of truckers, factory workers, cons, drifters – are by turns dignified, unsettling, enigmatic. The double portrait of Clarence Lippard, homeless on the Interstate 80, is not easily forgotten…but then neither is Avedon on Truman Capote. “My photographs don’t go beyond the surface,” said the photographer in 1980. “They don’t go below anything. I have great faith in surfaces.” Catch the show while you can.
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Richard Avedon until 27 Sep ’08 at the Jeu de Paume, 1 place de Concorde. www.jeudepaume.org
