News

Opening of the EMPIRE exhibition

22 juillet 2008

Opening of the EMPIRE exhibition at the « Rencontres d’Arles », curated by Christian Lacroix (on the picture). It gave us the chance to show for the second time our Vis voluntatis performance, with our purple guards. After the “Parcours St Germain” in Paris, we worked again on the costumes, and focused on the attitude of the guards posing, as a performance, hyper-static. Doing this in the context of the Empire series made sense and I will do it again for the show at the Galerie Filles du Calvaire in Brussels (Belgium) the 20th of September. I’ll show the Empire series, the Hereros and the Seijinshiki series. I now work on a larger exhibition, combining my whole « Portraits photographiques et uniformes » project since 1999. That will be the next step.

« Vis voluntatis » happening

30 mai 2008

Image of the first « Vis voluntatis » happening last night. It’s been a great experience. I’ll add more images of the happening soon, and a video too.

A me la guardia

26 mai 2008

This next thursday, I’ll do my first performance for the « Parcours St Germain » festival in Paris. You can get some infos on the website of the festival. The guards are ready… More infos later.

The new show at Galerie Nouvelles Images

16 avril 2008

The very big 成人式 Seijinshiki prints are shown in a room. The Hereros portfolio is displayed too. I think it’s a good combination giving two directions in my work.

I’m not in China now

10 mars 2008

But I’m working on my « Bi Yan » project. I did not expect this to be so complex. The « Bi Yan » series is about the wish to be inside a group, and more than that: to be able to use the codes and the fundamental language of a group, by exploring it, by twisting it. But it’s not a piece of cake. I started to work with the Chinese opera makeup artists in November, and now, I’m creating my own character for an hypothetic Chinese Opera. His name is Lu Qian Ren… The starting point was to write the story of Lu Qian Ren, as a credible historical story of the Chinese opera happening during the turbulent era from 304 to 439 known in history as the Period of Sixteen Kingdoms… On this picture, I try to make it like Gwan Yu, one of the most famous characters of the opera. Maybe that looks ridiculous but the wish to make it is stronger than the result itself. The result is and has to be obviously a failure, or it would just be some poor exoticism.

Show at the MOCA Shanghai

1 février 2008

Back from Shanghai after the opening of the « Unseen » Show at the MOCA Shanghai. I now work on my Chinese Opera project in Shanghai, as a third step. First I did this series of portraits in Beijing in 2005 and 2007. Then, I’ve worked with the make up artists of one of the Chinese Opera school in Beijing (to produce the Bi Yan collage). And now, I work with a choregrapher and several costume makers about my new project including the creation of costumes, a performance project…

Professor Wang

7 décembre 2007

Professor Wang, specialist of the « limited division » make up is painting my face, with that pink man face. It’s actually the make up which somehow stick to myself. I’ve spent one week with Professor Gia and Professor Wang, painted everyday… all together 26 characters landed on my face, on my one… it was chaotic of course, a kind of game between my identity of this complexe community. I’ve made that decision of walking that line, to interact with the communities I photograph much more; Cause, yes, there’s the « Opera » series picture made with the Chinese Opera too. Read more…