This exhibition at the Theater of Photography and Image, dedicated to one of the masters of advertising, is one of the major cultural events of the year 2014.
If you are probably advertising-averse, overwhelmed both on television and in the press by those advertisements extolling this or that product, Jean Paul Goude will reconcile you with advertising. There are 236 works by this artist on display here.
So many facets invite us on a journey, to discover other horizons, other people. There are figures from history, photos we remember like Mao swimming!
Jean Paul Goude is, of course, fashion, and where there’s fashion, there’s Paris, and where there’s Paris, there’s perfume. We all remember that commercial where the windows of a Haussmannian building open and close in rhythm. The advertiser is also a draftsman, and from drawings and sketches emerge the film, the photo, and advertising becomes a work of art. The Galeries Lafayette, Paris, the grand boulevards, and the metro, Goude has left his mark there. In 1989, he orchestrated the festivities of the bicentennial of the French Revolution.
Stars like Naomi Campbell or Grace Jones were honored by this genius of image. Jean Paul Goude is a magician; he makes appear what is not, shows what is, and the result is there, wonderful, magnificent.
A fifty-minute film takes us behind the scenes of creation and retraces the career of this advertiser. We revisit with emotion the parade of the bicentennial of the revolution and Goude’s most striking works.
This exhibition, running until May 25 at the theater of photography and image, is not to be missed, and we can only encourage you to attend. A great moment of intimacy to share with one of the masters of advertising whose name perfectly rhymes with fashion, perfume, Paris, and France.
Thierry Jan.
