Gérard Rancinan, photographer, and Caroline Gaudriault, author, have together worked on The Trilogy of the Moderns for seven years, elaborating a hybrid artistic vision of the upheavals characterising the contemporary world. Displayed for the first time at the prestigious contemporary French Museum Palais de Tokyo in Paris, 2009, and later it has been hosted by the world’s great museums. This time, it’s coming to China, to Shanghai Himalayas Museum. It includes around forty monumental photographs and a series of texts displayed on hanging scrolls, which together represent an intellectual journey that promotes a form of individual expression.

Gérard and Caroline, using photography and the written word, set up a dialogue and explore a world in desperate search of itself. In three chapters, their highly elaborated and developed approach builds a bridge with the history of classical art (the classical painters such as Géricault, Delacroix, Leonard da Vinci, Matisse…). The first section, Metamorphoses is inspired by the major universal themes of human mythology. The authors take contemporary Man and place him in a series of timeless quests (their references to the Raft of the Medusa from Géricault evoke the eternal search for the Promised Land, to which are added contemporary issues such as migratory population shifts). In the second volume, Hypotheses, the photographer and the writer move away from this link with classical art to explore the “rupture” supposedly characteristic of our times specially in the Occidental world, a concept beloved of those they refer to as the Moderns. Hypotheses is a reflection on the threats to the world’s civilisations and on the disappearance of entire languages. In the third volume, “Wonderful World”, characterised by impertinence and humour, they evoke, with a remarkable freedom of spirit, an infantilized, schizophrenic world in which universal happiness is de rigueur.

Reflecting our era by means of photographs, texts and films, the two authors take the spectator on a veritable journey.

About the artists

Gérard Rancinan, the photographer

Born in the Bordeaux region Gérard Rancinan travels the globe, bearing first hand witness to events of historical importance. With his imperious need to express himself, he delivers startling images of the contemporary world filtered through an ever-evolving aesthetic prism. His original perspective is applied to both real life situations and authentic mises-en-scène, veritable simulacra of our world. His oeuvre is entirely original. He uses photography as a means of expression and commitment. For Rancinan, photography is above all an instrument of thought, a militant perspective on our era. His approach is recognised by the world of contemporary art. Rancinan eschews conventional codes, preferring instead to travel a road which, while not solitary, is certainly unique. Known throughout the world, Gérard Rancinan’s works are displayed in the most prestigious international galleries and museums and feature in leading collections of contemporary art. Rancinan is an Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters.

Caroline Gaudriault, the writer

An independent journalist, Caroline Gaudriault has, for many years, published articles and features in international magazines including Paris Match, The Sunday Times, Stern, and Time, working on major projects around the world. At the same time, she creates portraits of major contemporary figures, with a particular emphasis on artists. As an author, she has always entertained a dialogue with photography. She applies a universalist perspective in her observations of the world around her. Expressing a particular interest in human commitment and historically significant events and movements, she works ceaselessly to preserve traces of memory. In order to further her research into contemporary society, she regularly interviews the leading thinkers of our times.

About the exhibition

Duration: 20September - 2 November, 2014

Venue: the third floor of Himalayas Museum, Shanghai

Opening: 19 September, 16:00

Courtesy of the artists and Himalayas Museum, for further information please visit  www.himalayasart.cn.