When Maurice Renoma has fun, it’s always with the affluence of vice. For all that, there’s no way of showing them in the raw. Renoma loves what is classy. And when he enters the cage of the playroom’s cesspool or those of illicit loves, there’s no need for spinet. These pictures are easily digested. Because the photographer has fun and entertains us with these “women at risk”. So that the film noir becomes a cocktail party: there’s Buster Keaton as in “Black dahlia”. The crooks play the hit-man. Next to them are Irises, messengers of the gods. But they don’t make bouquets of them. Their hairy, ugly appearance wants to create fear. They want to drown their muses as soon as they are tired of them. And with fitting logic, they tie them up before hoping to drown them. But these are the ones who are found in the boot of a car. These women don’t only pull a fast one but roll inexorably onward towards death. You have to understand that it’s a postmodern version of Godard’s Série Noire.
Jean-Paul Gavard-Perret
Jean-Paul Gavard-Perret is a writer on photography and a lecturer in communication at the Université de Savoie, in France.
Maurice Renoma, Série Noire
From 13th April to 13th July 2018
Le Souplex
129 bis rue de la Pompe
75016 Paris
