The fourth edition of the PORTRAIT(S) festival of Vichy opens its doors today. Until 4th September Vichy is an outpost of today’s photography for a season and is presenting to the public some exhibitions centred exclusively around the art of the portrait. This new edition is showing nine artists whose exhibitions are taking place simultaneously in the city centre and outside it, in the open air. L’Oeil de la Photographie brings you the work of one photographer from the programme every day. Today, focus on « We American Flavor » by Maï Lucas.
Maï Lucas grew up in Paris in the 1980s. When she was still very young she was lucky enough to meet figures like photographer Jean-Baptiste Mondino, designer Jean-Paul Gaultier, and Serge Kruger, DJ at the Bains Douches nightclub. At the age of eighteen she was assistant to Stéphane Sednaoui and Nick Knight, before becoming a fashion photographer in her own right. Very early, she also discovered New York and the emerging hip-hop culture led by LL Cool J, Public Enemy, Afrika Bambaataa, Monie Love, and others. Fascinated by this street culture, she travelled back and forth between New York and Paris, finally settling in New York where for over twenty years now she has documented the street and the supercool figures who inhabit its trendsetter locations. A fine observer of clothing styles and displays, she fixes her eye on those fashion details – an Afro hairdo, a mauve wig, a stripy strapless bra, ethnic ear-rings – that make a figure unique. Although sometimes labelled “sub-culture”, ignored or even scorned, street culture for her is quite different: it helps her renew creation and conveys the tempo of a mixed, variegated period. Through her street portraits of Afro-American or Latino youngsters who invent their own clothing codes, what she does above all is decode their signals of self-assertion, the emblem of a community that protests its difference, or even the mark of cultural cross-breeding.
Located mid-way between portrait, fashion photograph and social documentation, her work helps bring unusual, non-conforming beauties into the light, without a hint of prejudice.
FESTIVAL
PORTRAIT(S)
From June 10th to September 4th, 2016
We American Flavor
Maï Lucas
Centre Culturel Valery-Larbaud
03200 Vichy
France
https://www.ville-vichy.fr/agenda/festival-portraits-2016
http://www.mailucas.com
