Raphael Neal — Hollywood Nightmares
Exhibition from 22 November 2024 – 17 January 2025
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Galerie VU’
Hôtel Paul Delaroche,
58 rue Saint-Lazare, 75009 Paris
To coincide with the publication of the book of the same name by Editons Le bec en l’air, Galerie VU’ is presenting an exhibition by Raphaël Neal for the first time.
His photographs, with their dense, vivid colours, echo the golden age of Hollywood cinema and the legends of the stars of the silver screen. Behind the glitter of the costumes, the veneer of glamour, the false eyelashes and glitter, a gritty drama is at play. The scenes in which the creatures evolve (for they are indeed creatures, born of the imagination of the film industry’s producers and then metamorphosed by the photographer’s skilful staging) are closer to Boulevard du crépuscule than Les Hommes préfèrent les blondes.
In the images, chiselled down to the smallest detail, it’s always the same face, almost hidden beneath the thickness of the make-up. For this is a series of self-portraits, disturbing in their sometimes disturbing, sometimes bloody and deadly dimension. Everywhere we sense that violence is brewing or exploding. The interplay of mirrors and the multitude of images within the image place the figures in abyss, revealing their schizophrenia and duplicity. It’s as if Raphaël Neal were photographically reinterpreting the Portrait of Dorian Gray, as if behind the eternal youth, the sex appeal, the desirability, there lurked the disturbance, the ferocity and the price to be paid for being etched forever on film, and that he had come to reveal it to us.
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