exhibition stéphane lallemand

museum of modern and contempory art of strasbourg

february 3 > april 4 2004

Photogénies...

the thistledown
(images (in) negative)
I’ve heard a beautiful lady, a lady from the high society, not from my world, answering those who were discreetly hiding such images, undertaking herself to keep her modesty for herself : “Go on giving ; nothing is too strong to me”.[…]
Charles Baudelaire, “The modern public and photography”, Salon of 1859.
The description of the front side of the feminine chest and of its flanks that has just been made, would remain incomplete if a quite rare stroke of beauty called “necklace of Venus” wasn’t mentioned. It is the simple trace of a continuous bend with the form of an arch, very slightly pronounced by the skin, at first at the base of the neck, then, under the throat, tangential to the abdominal circle, and finally blending into the base of this circle in order to delimit the pubic area. […]
The binding of the chest with the lower limbs pronounces itself also with the help of the flexion’s bend of the belly with the thigh. Strongly accentuated at the joining of the limbs, this bend fades slowly by going up towards the flanks through the curve of the hips. In that way, it draws in a harmonious way the most sensually captivating part of the feminine body.
Marcel Barrière, “The feminine physique”, Albin Michel, 1929.