Galerie Obsession presents Labourage et pâturage an exhibition by Vincent Gouriou.
Between Brittany and the Massif Central, Vincent Gouriou met queer farmers. Together, they take the time to get to know each other and allow trust to develop between them. The question of time is fundamental here, since there is no rush. Their bodies are attuned to the living: a long, ancestral time. Through the moments spent together, the artist infiltrates the daily lives of each person. Thus, the men photographed are fully part of an ecosystem they have chosen: that of the farm and its surroundings. An environment in which bodies, both human and more-than-human, are affected by the living, in the broadest sense of the term. Snow, wind, rain, cold, heat, trees, fruits, vegetables, grass, hay, light, earth—all the fundamental ingredients of these ecosystems infuse and influence bodies. A symbiosis is created between them. This is manifested by the care and affection of gestures and attentive glances. Through images, Vincent Gouriou highlights the gentleness of contact: the farmer’s hand on the cow’s tongue, the tenderness of a caress on a ram’s cheek, a naked body in a pond, the swan’s neck curling around the farmer’s, the body-to-body contact with the horse. A skin with fur/feathers whose fusional dimension we feel. The artist also seeks the erotic sensuality of the living: the undulations of tree trunks, a hand holding a chestnut husk, a waterlogged rosebud, the rocks. A collective alliance is desired.
A loving experience of the living runs through the photographs. This could also be part of the theoretical and artistic movement of ecosexuality. Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens (queer artists, activists, and researchers in California) not only wrote the manifesto, but also practice this unconditional love of the living daily. With an ecological and feminist conscience, they encourage us to love not just Mother Earth, but the living as a lover. It is then a question of eroticizing it to better protect it. Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens wrote in 2011: We are aquaphiles, terraphiles, pyrophiles, and aerophiles. We shamelessly kiss trees, massage the earth with our feet, and speak erotically to plants. We are naked divers, sun worshippers, and stargazers. We caress rocks, adore waterfalls, and admire the Earth’s shapes. We make love to the Earth through our senses.” Vincent Gouriou’s photographs are nourished by these sensory (devouring a strawberry with our mouths open) and sensual (the bodies of naked men merge with vegetation, soil, or bodies of water) connections. A soothing feeling runs through us when we see these photographs, which attest to the multiple ways of acting in our places: gentleness, mutual affection, the refusal of domination, companionship, tenderness, respect, care, and love (because it takes a lot of it…).
Julie Crenn
Vincent Gouriou : Labourage et pâturage
March 5 – April 5 and April 29 – May 17, 2025
Galerie Obsession
5 passage Charles Dallery 75011 Paris
(street code 2369A – in the courtyard on the right – building entrance)
Tuesday – Saturday / 2 p.m. – 7 p.m. or by appointment
www.galerie-obsession.com
www.vincentgouriou.com
