In tandem with the author Caroline Gaudriault, the artist Gérard Rancinan, one of the great names
of French photography, brings to bear a symbolic gaze on today’ society, which they like to reinterpret
based on current events.
Known for his monumental photographic works, which have been exhibited at the Palais de Tokyo in
Paris, the Milan Triennale, the Shanghai Himalayas Museum of Contemporary Art, the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence and currently at the Bordeaux Submarine Base, Gérard Rancinan has just completed a work of exceptional dimensions and strong topicality.
At a time when the need to rethink Democracy is felt acutely, when current events nationally or overseas are raising questions about the stakes of power, the work of the two authors, each with their own means of expression, tries to grapple with societal events so as to extract a more objective and distanced vision in which man confronts his actions and their underside. In a dialogue between photography and writing, both authors expose, impertinently, the abuses of an era, its contradictions and excesses.
ABUSES OF POWER
It takes fifteen long strides for this interpretation of the history of power to unfold before one’s eyes.
The convulsions of the democratic struggle play out on this work in one extended reading.
The hierarchical order of power is falsely respected. The governor of this symbolic Democracy is none
other than a Ubuesque king, a risible figure enthroned amidst his pernicious courtiers. Abandoned by
family in decline, he is under threat from the schemers around him, taken no less seriously. Salvation is not to be found on the side of the media whose character-symbols are now one-eyed and have become trussed up paper men with their heads thrown back. Justice itself has been transformed into a funnel. Cultural power sinks under the dust of time. Religion also wants its share of the chessboard. Those who reap the benefits of the game are the anonymous black-suited figures, driven by ruthless ambitious and setting the rules with their chequebooks.
Exactly what Democracy is being depicted here, in this human folly that gets caught up in its own sarcasm? Between liberal Oligarchy, Democrature and participative Democracy, everyone is trying to work out who they are but not quite managing...
Because he takes the evils of society seriously, Gérard Rancinan cuts into the heart of the matter, with
humour and phantasmagoria inspired by the paintings of Jérôme Bosch or the tales of Lewis Carroll.
He is setting himself a challenge today with this monumental photograph measuring 1.80 x 15 meters.
The work will be accompanied by installations of Caroline Gaudriault’s texts and a book.
