Approaching Olga: the women behind and in front of the camera
By Catherine Millet. From 'Bettina Rheims, The Book of Olga'
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Why is that I think spontaneously of Jean Fouquet's marmorean Virgin with Child (circa 1450, Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp) when I see the photographs that will constitute The Book of Olga? Is it because the curves of the modern Olga, as revealed by Bettina Rheims, remind me of the absolutely perfect globe of the breast of Agnès Sorel, the favourite of Charles VII of France, who lent her features to this Virgin? Is it the azure blue of the sky and the vermilion of the handsome car, matching the model's lipstick, that strike me here and awaken my memory of the impact of Fouquet's Virgin, set between two rows of angels, one of which seems, strangely enough, to have been soaked in a bath of red dye, the other in a bath of blue? And did not Bettina Rheims once tell an interviewer that she has "always been fascinated by representations of the Virgin"? Or is it the lowered eyes of Agnès Sorel, lost in a vision that seems to carry her beyond her own beauty and even the child that she is barely holding on to with the tips of her fingers, which mix in my mind with those of Olga, who is sometimes so deeply lost in her dreams that she seems to be absent from her magnificent body and also from the provocative staging to which the photographer has subjected her body? Whatever the reason, the paradoxical art of Bettina Rheims, who allows us to approach the most joyous excesses of colour, exhibitionism and voyeurism, the better to transport us elsewhere, into a place where eroticism is one with humour and deep humanity, is illustrated to particularly telling effect in this work.
The photographs were commissioned by a husband proud of his wife's beauty, and who loves to have major photographers capture that pulchritude and exhibit it to the public
For all this, there was no guarantee that the game would be won. And when I say "game", I am simply reprising the metaphor used by the artist herself. Bettina explained her way of doing things to me as follows: "All the elements of the ‘envelope' are determined in advance, the setting is chosen or composed for the shots, the clothes that the model will wear, her hair, to get her in the right state. In my mind I have a very precise idea of the person, but only a hazy one of what she must do. I may get the feeling that I am getting nowhere, and yet I am making progress. It's like a game of tennis. I serve. The other person gets it, or maybe doesn't. I wait. She returns. I use what other people bring me but I don't know in advance what that will be, because most of the time I photograph people I've not met before. The game develops as it goes along. The day before, there's always the fear that this time things won't work out. One might think it gets easier and easier, but it doesn't because, it seems to me, what I'm looking for gets less and less spectacular. I'm following a thread that's getting finer and finer, and it occurs to me that one day there won't even be a thread any more. Still, I'll keep walking."Now, when it came to making these three sets of photographs showing the metamorphosis of the model into three different characters, sometimes with hardly anything in common—the pin-up, the 18thcentury marquise and the dominatrix/slave in an MS session—the game was even more risky than usual because this time there were three players! The circumstances surrounding these photographs, unprecedented for this artist, were as follows: they were commissioned by a husband proud of his wife's beauty, and who loves to have major photographers capture that pulchritude and exhibit it to the public. In this he is simply illustrating the fundamental law of the circulation of desire which ordains the presence of a witness or indeed of as many witnesses as possible. "Eroticism begins with the third party", as Salvador Dalí used to say. Even kings were subject to this law: to the best of our knowledge, Charles VII did not object to his mistress being represented as an in-decent Virgin, and nor did Henri II balk at his official mistress, Diane de Poitiers, being identified as a naked Diana the Huntress (circa 1550, Musée du Louvre, Paris), or Henri IV demur when his lover, Gabrielle d'Estrées, appeared with her sister, both of them hieratically nude from the waist up, in one of the most fascinating paintings of all time (circa 1594, also Musée du Louvre, Paris).We may even suppose that the kings saw these images as presenting History with evidence of another kind of power and wealth, in addition to the power and wealth represented in official portraits.
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Page 1 2 3
Why is that I think spontaneously of Jean Fouquet's marmorean Virgin with Child (circa 1450, Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp) when I see the photographs that will constitute The Book of Olga? Is it because the curves of the modern Olga, as revealed by Bettina Rheims, remind me of the absolutely perfect globe of the breast of Agnès Sorel, the favourite of Charles VII of France, who lent her features to this Virgin? Is it the azure blue of the sky and the vermilion of the handsome car, matching the model's lipstick, that strike me here and awaken my memory of the impact of Fouquet's Virgin, set between two rows of angels, one of which seems, strangely enough, to have been soaked in a bath of red dye, the other in a bath of blue? And did not Bettina Rheims once tell an interviewer that she has "always been fascinated by representations of the Virgin"? Or is it the lowered eyes of Agnès Sorel, lost in a vision that seems to carry her beyond her own beauty and even the child that she is barely holding on to with the tips of her fingers, which mix in my mind with those of Olga, who is sometimes so deeply lost in her dreams that she seems to be absent from her magnificent body and also from the provocative staging to which the photographer has subjected her body? Whatever the reason, the paradoxical art of Bettina Rheims, who allows us to approach the most joyous excesses of colour, exhibitionism and voyeurism, the better to transport us elsewhere, into a place where eroticism is one with humour and deep humanity, is illustrated to particularly telling effect in this work.
The photographs were commissioned by a husband proud of his wife's beauty, and who loves to have major photographers capture that pulchritude and exhibit it to the public
For all this, there was no guarantee that the game would be won. And when I say "game", I am simply reprising the metaphor used by the artist herself. Bettina explained her way of doing things to me as follows: "All the elements of the ‘envelope' are determined in advance, the setting is chosen or composed for the shots, the clothes that the model will wear, her hair, to get her in the right state. In my mind I have a very precise idea of the person, but only a hazy one of what she must do. I may get the feeling that I am getting nowhere, and yet I am making progress. It's like a game of tennis. I serve. The other person gets it, or maybe doesn't. I wait. She returns. I use what other people bring me but I don't know in advance what that will be, because most of the time I photograph people I've not met before. The game develops as it goes along. The day before, there's always the fear that this time things won't work out. One might think it gets easier and easier, but it doesn't because, it seems to me, what I'm looking for gets less and less spectacular. I'm following a thread that's getting finer and finer, and it occurs to me that one day there won't even be a thread any more. Still, I'll keep walking."Now, when it came to making these three sets of photographs showing the metamorphosis of the model into three different characters, sometimes with hardly anything in common—the pin-up, the 18thcentury marquise and the dominatrix/slave in an MS session—the game was even more risky than usual because this time there were three players! The circumstances surrounding these photographs, unprecedented for this artist, were as follows: they were commissioned by a husband proud of his wife's beauty, and who loves to have major photographers capture that pulchritude and exhibit it to the public. In this he is simply illustrating the fundamental law of the circulation of desire which ordains the presence of a witness or indeed of as many witnesses as possible. "Eroticism begins with the third party", as Salvador Dalí used to say. Even kings were subject to this law: to the best of our knowledge, Charles VII did not object to his mistress being represented as an in-decent Virgin, and nor did Henri II balk at his official mistress, Diane de Poitiers, being identified as a naked Diana the Huntress (circa 1550, Musée du Louvre, Paris), or Henri IV demur when his lover, Gabrielle d'Estrées, appeared with her sister, both of them hieratically nude from the waist up, in one of the most fascinating paintings of all time (circa 1594, also Musée du Louvre, Paris).We may even suppose that the kings saw these images as presenting History with evidence of another kind of power and wealth, in addition to the power and wealth represented in official portraits.
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