Louise Bourjac
Paris, United States
11 Works exhibited on Kooness
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Works by Louis Bourjac
LOUIS BOURJAC born in Paris in 1955, received his early education at a Jesuit institute, where his stubborn and rebellious temperament soon emerged.
From 1975 to 1980 he travelled in Africa and in the South American French regions of Antilles and Guyane. From 1982 to 1987 he was again in Paris, where he studied photography with Henri Coste and Beni Trutmann and acquired experience through working with various agencies and magazines. To this period belongs his reportage in Colombia, which allowed him the opportunity of coming into contact with indigenous cultures and Guajiro shamans.
On his return to Paris in 1988 he began working with the great Parisian fashion house of Chanel, for whom he helped to shape important advertising campaigns, and Givenchy, for whom he realized a series of works in colour to represent the philosophy of the brand in the best possible way.
Current main clients are La Prairie, l’Oreal, Nina Ricci, Armani, Helena Rubinstein…
Parallel to this, he was attracted by everyday scenes and by urban environments, carrying out a series of shots in black and white of Paris by night, the Pigalle quarter and industrial archaeology. His attention was also caught by moments when people come together for occasions like boxing matches, or for traditional festivals like Spanish corridas and bullfights. He has mounted numerous exhibitions and retrospectives in which his attraction to the everyday alternates with his interest in fashion: “60 years of female suffrage”, “Nocturnes”, “Industrial structures and the traces of working lives”, “50 years of Givenchy perfumes”, “Ordinary passers-by” and “N&B, behind the scenes of fashion”.
Matteo Pacini, curator:
« This time we are speaking of a journey. A metaphorical journey in a vast territory – photography.
A complex and structured walk where different personalities enter into relationship with each other.
These are visual inquiries distinct from each other, but also points of encounter where eyes meet and then go down separate paths.
The starting-point is a French photographer, Louis Bourjac, a sophisticated artist of great contrasts, with a nature that is restless but profound and delicate, and at the same time both blunt and painstaking.
Bourjac elegantly observes and immortalizes worlds that seem to run along parallel tracks apparently destined never to meet. He moves with insouciance from the glamour of high fashion, when working with the grand houses of Paris, to blood-soaked Spanish corridas, from nights of fun along the streets of Montmartre to the rusty abandoned machinery of the decommissioned industries of Antwerp.
A gaze – his own – curious and attentive, backed up by a photographic medium intended “for connoisseurs”, black and white. ( …)
Thus through the essential nature of black and white Bourjac expresses his artistic personality, by entering into different fields, by focussing on the details and parts that are constitutive of the goal of gaining a more complete vision of the whole.
In the “Pigalle” series, through shots taken unawares in the course of evenings enjoyed among friends, Bourjac offers a very personal and detailed portrait of a noisy and lively society moving about in one of the most fascinating quarters of the French capital. One can almost sense the smells, the music, the bustle and laughter, the craziness.
In some cases the exaggerated accentuation of contrasts is reminiscent of the technique of engraving, especially in the “Polyaths” series obtained by dipping plates coated with a gelatine of silver bromide into a special bath in order to create the very deepest blacks.
Equally interesting is how Bourjac confronts the subject of landscape, not the landscape of postcard views but that of the most filthy and rusty of abandoned industrial plants that provides us with a strong visual stimulus thanks to the fascination of the decay and squalor resulting from dereliction. »
L’œuvre au bleu, Église d’Aubepierre 2022
Les Simples, Chateauvillain 2021
Forets imaginaires, Chateauvillain 2019
Drawing Inks, Paris 2018
Freaks, Paris 2018
Anvers aux Abbesses 2005-2015 (collectif)
PIGALLE, Bretonneau, France 2015 (collectif)
PIGALLE, Lugano Italie 2015
FOTISSIMA ART FAIR, Turin Italie, novembre 2013
I PAESAGGI DEL INDUSTRIA, Naples Italie,, avril 2013
I PAESAGGI DEL INDUSTRIA, Terni Italie, mars 2013
PHOTOMOBILE, Paris France Novembre 2013
"Pigalle revient à Pigalle" à la boule noire, Paris France 2013
3° FESTIVAL FOTOGRAFICO ITALIANO, Busto Asizio Italie, novembre 2012
MUSEO DEL TESSILE, Busto Arsizio Italie, octobre 2012
I PAESAGGI DELL’ INDUSTRIA, Milan Italie, mai 2012
PIGALLE, Milan Italie, mars 2012
POLALYTHS, Paris France, novembre 2012
"60 ans de vote des femmes" Paris Mairie du 9°, du 18° puis de Gennevilliers
Bordeaux France, la morue noire, biennale 2D 2008
Les structures industrielles et les traces du monde ouvrier
Festival "cour saint pierre", Paris France 2007
"Nocturnes" pour Nuit Blanche, paris France 2007
Cinéma des cinéastes Paris France 2005
Pigalle ton ombre est une valse triste 2000
Le passant ordinaire 2000