For Jean-Christophe Béchet: “Cuba is not just an island. It’s a political symbol. It is also part of our collective imagination and a major part of this revolutionary heritage which began in France in 1789. There is of course the epic of Castro and the idealized destiny of the Che. There is also music, tourism, rum, Hemingway and endless political debates on the “track records” of this more complex ideology than many believe. “
The photographer went to Cuba in 1990, when the “Balseros” were trying to reach the American coast, Florida, on their makeshift rafts. He returned to Havana twenty years later, upon the death of Fidel Castro, discovering a city in the midst of change. American cars are still there but have become taxis for tourists, along the Malecon, buildings are being renovated and luxury bars are flourishing …
Jean-Christophe Béchet has moved away from this tourist theater, preferring to get lost in the dark streets, in search of these Cuban sensations: between poverty and class, order and anarchy.
Habana Song is visual poetry that he plays in black and white, far from the clichés and colors that usually identify Cuba. A music that accompanies us throughout this photographic stroll.
Born in 1964 in Marseille, Jean-Christophe Béchet lives and works in Paris since 1990. His photographic works have been the subject of numerous exhibitions and monographs in which he mixes black and white and color but also different formats. He also writes for several specialized photography journals (Fisheye, Le Monde de la Photo, etc.). He has published many books, including European Puzzle at Loco editions.
Jean-Christophe Béchet : Habana Song
21 x 27 cm, 152 pages,
environ 100 reproductions en bichromie,
relié toile
ISBN : 978-2-84314-018-1
