Preview Gallery presents Firefly by JF Julian. Since 2010, JF Julian maintains a correspondence with models known for their nude photos. Here are the 27 encounters gleaned around the world in 10 years of night exploration. This is the FIREFLY project, in French: LUCIOLE
FIREFLY
The door closes on the permanent light of the corridor and the eye of the cameras.
Then the model undresses.
The surveillance stops, where the glow of the diodes wobbles.
The megalopolises, without sleep nor insomnia, mechanically distribute the tickets, the drinks, the company.
At any time, when the night no longer belongs, a magnetic card allows you to withdraw from the uninterrupted white day.
One hotel room after another.
The conditions of the engagement are discussed: the price, the place, the moment, the duration, the ideas of staging, the accessories.
Sexual abstinence is explicit.
No fear or constraint, it is only a matter of taking pictures of naked women, most often identified and contacted on the net, where they expose themselves freely.
The grid of networks retains in their threads their algorithmic luminescence.
Under the electric stars, in search of weightlessness and a suspended time, they deploy still wings.
At the risk of believing themselves eternal, they play insolently, of their apparent lightness. Ephemeral virtuosity, with no calculation, which inspires and worries.
The diverted uses of desire are open to the fantasy of JF Julian and his model.
The agreement is made on an erotic occupation of space and the possibility of making images to their liking.
The chiaroscuro calls for indulgence and abandonment.
Behind the drawn curtains, left to themselves, they create the conditions for an artificial night. Without witnesses or spectators, they search in mannerist compositions, the possibility of an indecent and idle beauty.
Poetic isolation transgresses the law of utility and sex given banally in spectacle.
Eroticism accepts fragility and lost time.
The pictures show something, but it’s something else that happened.
Fever and excitement may be gone. There remain the disorders of intimacy, which cleaning up will erase.
A collection of memories with hidden intensity.
The sizes of the prints are often very small and pinned on the walls.
Juxtaposition of unique specimens, gleaned around the world, over ten years of nocturnal exploration.
You have to approach to see and subtract each photo from the comparison.
Isolate yourself to contemplate the scene and spot the details of a lost moment.
Move away to remember.
Let go of melancholy.
Text by Christophe Jarreau
JF Julian : Firefly
April 11 – May 11, 2019
Preview Gallery
14 of the street of Castiglione
Paris 75001
https://www.instagram.com/jf.julian/
https://www.instagram.com/previewgallery/
