Gérard Rancinan, in his own words: “I’m a photographer who looks at other people, at my contemporaries. I bear witness to them, I accompany them. I’m an artist who thinks about the times we live in, who observes them, who chews them up and spits them out again. I don’t claim to have reinvented the wheel. I want to be a conduit, a wakeful witness to my era, like Velázquez and El Greco, like the artists who came before me.”
It’s a certain kind of man who can stand in front of the Pope, or Fidel Castro, or Desmond Tutu, or the Dalai Lama, and “bear witness to them”. Rancinan is that kind of man. He has taken portraits of some of the most powerful people on the planet (Bill Gates never smiles, apparently, while the late Yasser Arafat was “very attentive and cooperative”), but seems largely immune to their stature. When Rancinan is behind the camera, he’s in charge. “I suggest a situation; either they accept it or I don’t do it,” he says. Simple as that.
So Alexander McQueen, enrobed in a voluminous Union Jack, looks pensive and vulnerable; Castro stands, defiant, on a clifftop in Havana, dark clouds amassing over his head; the Dalai Lama looks straight into the camera, his face creased into a smile; Hosni Mubarak is proud and serious in front of the pyramids; and Pope Jean Paul II is prostrate in prayer.
Who was the most challenging to photograph, I wonder. “They were all challenging,” Rancinan retorts. “In fact, the quest for perfection is very stressful; there’s no respite.”
Born in France in 1953, Rancinan started his career in the photo department of a daily newspaper. By the age of 18, he had become France's youngest photojournalist and spent the following years traversing the globe, covering everything from wars and riots to natural disasters and international sporting events. He shot for some of the most high-profile publications in the world (from a Hiroshima survivor on the cover of Time to Lance Armstrong on the cover of Sports Illustrated), garnered countless accolades and became the first person to win the World Press Photo of the Year award six times – although the single most important lesson he learnt out on the field was "humility", he says.
Eventually, his focus shifted towards portraiture and a more independent, subjective form of artistic expression. "During my time as a photojournalist I saw the world from up close, in all its details, with all its faults. I won prestigious awards; my photos were published on the covers of the most prestigious magazines, including Life magazine. It was time for me to take a step back and look at the world from a more distant perspective, to analyse it, and using the experience I had acquired, to be critical of it."
In addition to the portraits, Rancinan is known for his fine art photography – lavishly staged, beautifully captured, sometimes dark, often controversial comments on contemporary culture. Although Rancinan generally shies away from referring to himself as an “artist”, his work is a bridge between classical art and contemporary social critique.
There are warped re-enactments of The Last Supper; Michael Jackson impersonators of all shapes and sizes, lounging in a laundromat; bouquets of flowers in varying states of decay; and, perhaps most famously, the Batman Family series, images of seemingly picture-perfect Wasp types, save for the fact that they are wearing Batman masks and are enveloped in a staid disconnectedness. It's a powerful indictment on modern family values. Incidentally, in a 2011 auction, Batman Family (girls) was expected to sell for between £12,000 and £18,000 (up to Dh87,700). It fetched £97,250 (Dh474,000).
So, does he set out to shock? “My job is to provoke, to provoke intellectual reflection, to be accurate and precise, and to develop a line of thought. Artists succeed in standing out against the plethora of images offered up to us by the internet by creating beautiful art, rather than advertising or decoration. I am a wakeful witness of the metamorphoses of society. I’m interested in everything. You have to say that the times we live in are quirky, amusing, terrifying, curious, and, in this regard, perfect for an artist to describe.”
In an age of hyper-digitalisation and social media, where every selfie-obsessed Instagrammer considers themselves something of an amateur photographer, does Rancinan worry that the power of the photograph is being diminished? “No, on the contrary,” he says. “It’s something different, it’s fixed, it describes a reality and that’s where its strength comes from. Artistic photography is extremely potent. If great collectors and museums are taking an increasing interest in it, it’s not for no reason.”
Residents of the UAE will be able to decide for themselves, as Rancinan’s latest exhibition has made its global debut in Dubai. The exhibition opens on October 5 at the Opera Gallery Dubai in DIFC and will run until October 20. In a major coup for the region, to coincide with the show, Rancinan will also be available to take portraits of 10 individuals – at a cost of Dh200,000 per session. I imagine Rancinan as something of a despot once behind the camera, but he assures me that the process will be “straightforward, friendly [and] artistic”.
“I love Dubai – it’s a new world,” he adds. “It’s modern, with an interesting dynamic and mix of people. It’s a city of the future. I feel at ease in a desert from which a science fiction city has emerged.”
The Opera Gallery has had a long-running relationship with Rancinan, first showing his work at its Geneva branch in 2010. The company has since hosted six solo shows by the photographer, in its various galleries around the world, and first presented pieces by Rancinan in Dubai during a pop-up show in February 2015. “Whether you visit our London, New York or Hong Kong gallery, you are bound to see at least a couple of his pictures on our walls,” says Sylvain Gaillard, general manager of Opera Gallery Dubai. “It’s great to have an artist like Gérard on board because his work is cross-cultural and has an almost universal appeal.”
Was Gaillard concerned, given the often controversial nature of Rancinan’s work, how audiences in the UAE would respond? “It’s true that his work can be controversial,” he acknowledges. “After being active in the region for eight years, we knew which lines not to cross when making the selection of artworks for this show. What is important to take away is that Gérard’s work is controversial, but never vulgar or provocative. Throughout his career, I don’t think he ever did a piece just for the ‘shock value’ of it. I like to call his photographs conversation pieces, because they never leave the public unmoved. The attitude towards art has also changed a lot in the UAE, and people are being more receptive to visually challenging pieces, which also encouraged us to select interesting artworks for his show.”
The current exhibition features a range of photographs, both old and new, ranging in price from Dh100,000 to Dh500,000. I get an exclusive look at some of the pieces before the exhibition and, against the raw surroundings of an Al Qusais warehouse, their power is all the more apparent. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, given my line of work, it is Press Power that most resonates. A man in a bulletproof vest, with the word "Press" emblazoned across his back, points his camera at another man, who, with his hands behind his back and his head obscured by the front page of a newspaper, looks like a kidnap victim about to be executed. It is an unashamedly aggressive stance, the camera converted into a weapon, the reader, or subject, into a victim. I translate it as a comment on the role and power of the press, and its ability to abuse that power.
It's one of Gaillard's favourites, too, he tells me. "I have always been a fan of the Batman Family series. Visually, the composition has a strong appeal to me, and the subjects send us back to our conception of our own family and values. This being said, my favourite piece of all time has to be Press Power. I first saw it in November 2010 in Geneva (when I met Gérard for the first time) and it never left my mind. Fast-forward to a couple of years later, and I was lucky enough to include it in my personal collection. I guess you never forget your first love!
“I love Gérard’s work for two reasons,” Gaillard continues. “First off, his technique is flawless and impressive, taking into account that he does not use Photoshop. This also translates into the production of the pictures, which come on a thick metal frame under Dibond. He also pushed the envelope further by creating autographed cleaning kits for all of his pictures, which shows you how passionate the artist is about the execution of his work. Second, I love the fact that every picture has a story to tell. The monochromatic pieces might appear simple at first glance, but they all tell an interesting story about our society, our values, and the world we live in.”
Read this and more stories in Luxury magazine, out with The National on Thursday, October 6.
sdenman@thenational.ae