Arles, July 1986, the Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie was bubbling with excitement. The director of the Ecole Nationale de la Photographie (National School of Photography) invited me to produce a photo essay on the former Nord-Pinus hotel in exchange for an exhibition at the Galerie Aréna. The hotel, which had been closed for four years, was the home of its owner, Mme Bessière, better known by her stage name Germaine Gilbert: she still lived there with her cats and her dog, Warum.
In November, I decided to start working on the premises. I came armed with two cameras, a load of wide-angles, a solid tripod, a few boxes of chocolates for Germaine and especially some lamp sockets and a bag full of bulbs of all kinds to recreate the original atmosphere and lighting.
Two intensive, timeless days, in the maze of corridors and the dust in the rooms in random progress where each image was a haiku. Several days later, I showed the images to the director of the ENP who was pleased with them but who asked adamantly for.
“The essential” portrait of Germaine. In vain I told him that I wasn’t an entomologist, he was uncompromising. I went back to the hotel for the last time: A black and white photo of Germaine taken fifty years before came to the rescue, putting the real Germaine into focus.
On January 15th 1987, the emergency plan was put into effect, Arles was snowbound. Just the same the opening at the Galerie Aréna took place in the presence of Germaine who raised her glass of champagne with the cry “I’m twenty years old”!
Germaine died a few weeks later.
Christian Ramade
Christian Ramade, Germaine et le Nord-Pinus
Published by Équinoxe
26€
Exhibition was at the Boutographies festival in Montpellier
