Even if he works in gardens and other special spaces, the heart of Jean Rault’s photographic work is made up of portraits begun at the beginning of the 1980s in the wake of his two great masters: August Sander for social inventory and Diane Arbus for the more psychological and intimate aspect. In both cases, a certain radicalism, one could even talk about a certain “nudity”, is imposed on the viewer.
In Japan, the idea of showing the nude body in art is a western import, this is why it is called “noudo”, translated from the English nude. In France “The Nude” is linked to “life drawing”, in the Fine Arts tradition and also a kind of “bourgeois” academism, inherited from the nineteenth century. Starting with his fourth trip to Japan in 2000, Jean Rault wanted to extend and question his work of portraits more or less nude, begun in the west in the 1980s and experience a new connection between the body, clothes, the intimate theatre, space and especially the earth.
The exhibition Portraits du monde flottant at the Chapelle Saint-Julien in Petit-Quevilly Rouen region, from November 24th to December 17th 2017, is showing several dozen portraits produced by Jean Rault during his forty-two trips to Japan. Portraits more or less nude of Japanese women photographed in their private places, hotels, love-hotels; the exhibition is also showing Sumo wrestlers photographed in 2000 at a training camp near Tokyo, paraplegics racing in wheel-chairs in Kyoto and also a series entitled Diamonds are forever, portraits of creatures of the night encountered in Kyoto, back-stage between two night-time shows in a nightclub in the old Japanese capital. The portraits shown in this portfolio are those of a young brunette woman from Kyoto who is a dancer, actress and singer, photographed during the last two years. This exhibition is linked to the release of a film about the photographer entitled Bovary tout contre Butterfly.
Watch the trailer here: http://www.sanchoetcompagnie.fr/film/bovary-tout-contre-butterfly/
Jean Rault, Portraits du monde flottant
From 24th November to 17th December 2017
Chapelle Saint-Julien
Rue de l’esplanade
76140 Petit-Quevilly
France
http://www.abbayes-normandes.com/evenement/exposition-jean-rault-portraits-du-monde-flottant/
