Since 1984 / B & W and Polaroid
« I made a series of black and white images of life in swimming pools in France and around the world. It is part of a sociological and aesthetic research that I have been conducting for the past thirty years on the theme « The body and water ».
This set is unique by its size, unique too, for the fact that I could take photos openly without authorization (photos are now prohibited in all public swimming pools) my camera close to the water and underwater without scaring anyone. Hence this proximity, this sensuality, this Dolce Vita that emanates from my photos. The kids were diving-bomb, the women were rolling their one-piece swimsuits over their hips and swimming topless, lighting a cigarette after the bath, fingers still wet.
I was able to look freely at them during all these years, in an always tender, aesthetic, even humorous way.
Since 2014, I have recovered my rubber ring and the way to the swimming pools. The image is in the polaroid square, faded colors, tense graphics, framing to the millimeter and gaze in close proximity, intense and sensual. The Pool Party spirit comes ringing at my door and making bodies and water a celebration!
Polaroid SX70, private pools, permissions, friends and models, these are my new ingredients to keep playing in the water. »
Gil Rigoulet
And Gil’s Guest
Polaroïd – Mathilde Deer, intimate stories, black and white series.
“Small intimate stories, in the hollow of the apartment, in these private moments, like a tiny theater of shadows, a nostalgia that is only a departure, a refocusing to stifle the city, where one can imagin a desired life before looking behind the oceans. ”
Nature Within – Aurelie Kahn, a series of photographs from Japan
“Hiking in Japan. Magical encounters with the natural world in its myriad of expressions. Omnipresent yet elusive. Shapes, colors, movements… Fragments of a reality. Absorbed in a state of contemplation, vision becomes illusion, perception surrenders to emotion. A touch of color. Yet another. A pictorial treatment, to suggest rather than to show. Fascinating nature. A timeless yet ephemeral beauty, blooming only to fade. From this ever-changing state, an impression remains, like the inner persistence of a fleeting beauty.”
Gil Rigoulet : Body and Water
And Gil’s Guests
Galerie Gil & DO
22 rue des Suisses 13200 Arles
From July 1 to August 31, 2020
Open daily from 10:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.
