Art & Design Now
Interview: Gérard Rancinan
Gérard Rancinan is perhaps France’s best know photographer. His work has regularly been on the covers of Time, Life, Sports Illustrated and Paris Match. He has photographed the rich and famous, artists, politicians, heroes; everyone from the Pope to Claudia Schiffer.
Talented, hard-working and ambitious Rancinan started out, at age 15, as a dark room technician on a provincial newspaper in Bordeaux, by the age of 18 he was the youngest photojournalist in France.
He was signed up by the Sygma Press Agency, and was sent around the world to document strikes, riots, wars, and revolutions.
In the 1970’s he covered events such as the bloody civil war in Lebanon, and an earthquake in Algeria. In the 1980’s he shot Solidarity protests in Poland, and riots in London. As a press photographer he sees himself as a witness to events. He lets the image speak for itself, telling its own story.
Since 1975 his press photography has been published around the world, and has won him numerous prizes, including four prestigious World Press Awards.
Rancinan’s portraits of the world’s top athletes, politicians, actors, and celebrities are much in demand by magazines and art galleries alike.
Rancinan likes to photograph “the good and great”, artists and poets, politicians and religious leaders. He says that they have more soul.
Some of his most iconic photographs have been his portraits of Fidel Castro, the Dalai Lama, and Rev. Desmond Tutu.
As a portrait photographer he says, “I like to disappear from the picture, and let the soul of the sitter come through.”
Some of his largest works of the past few years are part of a trilogy he is working on. The works are very large format photographs of tableau vivant featuring striking groups of suitably costumed actors, carefully posed and theatrically lit.
These large format photographs form part of a trilogy, called “Metamorphosis”. The first part of which was exhibited in 2009, at the Palais de Tokyo, in Paris.
Standing in front of these works you would think you were looking at a classical painting by Delacroix or Velázquez, but on closer inspection the figures in the painting are in contemporary, and the themes are the issues facing society today. The classical looking images are littered with modern-day references, such as Coke bottles, cheerleaders, Mickey Mouse, TV evangelists and Kalashnikovs.
He deals with big issues like war, overpopulation, greed, vanity and obesity. The works have biblical overtones. His work is popular with galleries and collectors, for it’s contemporary themes, shocking imagery, and profusion of colour and detail.
These works are complex tableau staged in elaborate theatrical sets, populated by dozens of actors and models.
There are dozens of people working on these big set pieces, from set-dressers and lighting technicians to make-up artists and hairdressers.
These projects are complicated to plan and shoot, fortunately Rancinan works with his longtime collaborator, Caroline Gaudriault who manages the complex photo-shoots, along with a team of enthusiastic staff.
His work “Raft of the Illusions” is based on the 19th century painting “the raft of the Medusa” by Géricault, which has been modernized by Rancinan to show desperate modern day economic migrants trying to reach a better life in Europe. Rancinan
deliberately chose immigrants as his models for this photograph.
His picture The Big Supper is a modern-day reworking of Da Vinci’s The Last Supper. Photographed in LA, the picture is populated with Hells Angels, chubby strippers and cheerleaders, tucking into hamburgers and shakes, all blessed by a messianic burger-flipping cook.
Other works include Rancinan’s version of Henri Matisse's "Dance," Renaissance paintings, and Velazquez's 1656 masterpiece "Las Meninas" — which Rancinan transforms into a satire on society’s obsession with youth. Fetish models pose with a worn out Marilyn Monroe on a set strewn with Botox syringes.
Much of Gerard Rancinan’s work is shiny and new, or dark and apocalyptic, just like the consumer society he portrays. He holds up a mirror to show us the dark side of fame, glamour and consumerism, and seems to be celebrating and condemning it at the same time.