AndrƩ Guiboux
Bridal Rumor, 2013. All images by and courtesy the artist.
Eight staged photographs with remunerated āsex workersā. (Extracts)
Wear out any power of the images, with their reversal,
of the marginal and peripheral through a loving imaging, both banal and domesticā¦
The women pictured live near the sun, they are like small sunflowers who appear overexposed. One finds them beautiful but they no longer believe us…
This work involves a romanticised staging, incorporating myself into their workplaces. To empty the stage of its āerotic/tradeā characteristics and replace the archetypal image that encloses these women with an imagery of love. This project was long and laboriousāworking with people victimised by human traffickingāthe simple act of photographing in this environment is directly harmful to their business and their anonymity.
Giving your body is one thing, but giving your image is another …
Exhibiting or publishing these images raises ethical questions.
The main thing, to my mind, is to take care, to come closer.
I intend to create a gesture of love, in an image, which brings us together.
While this project could seem to have humorous aspects, it is in fact deeply melancholy.
Behind the fiction of these images and the artistic pretext, is an experience…
Not that of prostitution but of the human, of the encounter.
You could say I did nothing except meet people.
Born in 1987, AndrĆ©Ā Guiboux graduated from the art school of Grenoble with the congratulations of the jury.Ā He livesĀ and worksĀ between Paris and the south of France. Erotic, political, or oriented towards the sacred; the artistic practice of AndrĆ© Guiboux involves a reflection on the role and power of images through a succession of passionate gestures in order to find, for a moment, the unity between things.Ā His artwork has been exhibitedĀ at the 5th Orient’Art Express Festival of Oujda;Ā the 17th Biennial of young creators of Europe and the Mediterranean in Milan; the 32nd Winter Festival in Sarajevo; The Others,Ā the Turin art fair with the Pauline Pavec Gallery: and recently at the frac-Centre OrlĆ©ans.