Archive for the 'Image' Category

Les bouches écrasées - Squeezed mouths

Thursday, July 13th, 2006

Here is some pictures from a series I started in early 2005, shooting during parties and familly gathering. When I decide to start a new session, I try to convince every man in the room to let me shoot him with my right hand as I squeeze his mouth with my left hand.
It’s a portrait study. With a small dose of gender study : I decided to squeeze only men. No women, because squeezing the face of a woman would mean something totally different, given the genders relationships as they are.

Les bouches écrasées - MarcorelLes bouches écrasées - MarcLes bouches écrasées - PatrickLes bouches écraséesLes bouches écrasées - Jean-PaulLes bouches écrasées - Jean-Louis

Why do I found them to be beautiful in such a pose, ridiculed, unglorious and suffering? I think it’s because, all strong men as they are, they accepted to loose a little bit of social status, becoming fragile for a moment.

Sneakers for free

Thursday, July 13th, 2006

Logos and brands are everywhere. It seems that nobody would wear a non-branded pair of sneakers ! But, hey, those branded sneakers are costly, and with the hot summer we have every year, going barefoot is really preferable. So I made sneakers for free for my friends, drawing a logo directly on their feet from memory. and we documented it with a polaroid and a large format camera.

Last summer, I was at a wedding party in the french countryside. Everybody was slowly going barefoot, enjoying the feeling of the grass as the night was falling. We were talking with complete strangers, and my way of socializing is by the mean of micro performances. I guess any gathering, any party, is just a field of experimentation to me.

So I grabbed some pen and markers I always have with me, and began to give a present to anyone that would accept it : a pair of free sneakers, only from the best brands.

Sneakers for free - AdidasSneakers for free - NikeSneakers for free - ConverseSneakers for free - PumaSneakers for free - Converse All Star

I made a few polaroid with my SX-70 to document the gift of the sneakers, and my friend Marc joined me with his large format camera, taking black and white picture using the natural light. Here is his raw contact sheet :

Sneakers for free - Large format contact sheet

There was a collective effort at work in collecting visual memories about the most well known sneaker brands. Because, coming for a wedding party, nobody was wearing any of those brand that night.