Simon Bocanegra (1949-2011) was a nighttime portraitist and photographer of great talent. His modus operandi was always the same: one arm raised towards the sky with his flash and his Nikon. A lover of scandals, androgynous beauties, and elderly people, he was also the visual telltale of his friends and the underground world. An exhibition in Paris is paying tribute to him.
It was at Royal Lieu, in the middle of the night and the 1980s, that I had the opportunity to meet Simon Bocanegra. That night, our makeshift DJ mixed his old vinyls to revive the nighttime hot spot. At the end of the night, a stranger literally pushed me towards the exit while saying in my ear: “Don’t worry, I’m used to crowds.” In less than a few seconds, he pressed me against the wall by the sides of my Commandeur Exquis. Simon, all while telling us not to move, drew his Nikon and his flash and, in one hundredth of a second, targeted the very site of our relationship.
This revealing photo fascinated me to the same extent as that of May Ray’s Marquise Casati portrait. When she saw her completely blurred image, she could make out the reflection of her soul. The circumstances of our encounter exactly reflected his modus operandi, which could leave the model with the feeling of a “photo pass” in a furtive, effective sense, devoid of conscious and entirely taken over.
At the time, Simon Bocanegra never took more than three shots: the first, the click; the second, correcting a movement or a detail; the third, if needed, enhancing the hasard objectif. If, of these three poses, the photo did not take form, this laborious persistence with a great deal of film would have been in vain. The urgency and intensity of the moment were crucial in order to secure, intact, the lively power of a gaze. These photos were taken on the fly in the developing night or in the effervescence of the backstage where, invested with this legitimacy that he used as a passport, he was able to distract a model before walking down the runway by saying: “Look at me. Go ahead, play the game. I want the nectar of your real self,” or even, “For one second, be the master of the world.”
Numerous photographers (Boubat, Doisneau, Cartier-Bresson…) claimed the natural as an absolute necessity to reach into the real substance of the subject. Simon Bocanegra went in the opposite direction, attempting to get to the truth of each one through the extreme sophistication of appearance. This approach was like a continuation of the Oscar Wilde quote: “It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearance.”
Apart from the sophistication of finery, we shall think of gender identity as an ultimate artifice. In fact, the ambiguity of understanding sexes is enough to confuse us. Transexual, transvestite, androgynous, drag queen, dandy, woman, or man, the secret of each one will be preserved by the evidence of an aesthetic ethic. Bocanegra dared to give us a whole other clarity by exclusively revealing a chosen and transcended sex. This portrait gallery is made only of creatures who could all adhere to this declaration by the absolute dandy, Beau Brummell: “It’s my folly, the making of me.”
Whether it is a shot from day or night, the light rendered is the same: incandescent, splashed, surreal, and has an extreme intensity like that of his eye. His portraits are in color. “Black and white, too easy, color, it’s thankless,” he said. The depths are attenuated and homogenized in favor of the model and a point is made very precisely on the pupil, which becomes a target as such. His way of shooting falls within the concentration and precision of archery.
His extreme state of resolution allowed him to establish a relationship of complicity with his model right from the start. In a few seconds, he would manage to obtain full commitment. Even behind the dark glasses of Paloma and Éliane, we perceive the determination of the gaze and the consent.
In the face of such excessiveness, we can well imagine that his intention was not only to attain a smooth and academic portrait. What exactly did he want? To capture a second in eternity, nothing less. Picasso, who could not hide his admiration for Matisse, said of him: “He’s got the sun in his gut.” Allow me to happily pass on this skillfully written compliment to Simon Bocanegra.
Jacqueline Germé
Jacqueline Germé is a writer. She lives and works in Paris.
Simon Bocanegra
From October 18 through November 15, 2017
Galerie du passage
20/26 galerie Véro-Dodat
75001 Paris
France
