KISHIN SHINOYAMA

Since the end of the 60's, Kishin Shinoyama's career has been marked by nude images: classic nudes perfectly composed of subtle plays of color or black and white gradations. He is today one of the greatest masters of Japanese photography. Some of his books - more than 350 to date since the first one, 28 Girls, released in 1968 - have sold more than 700,000 copies in Japan. 

For him, photography is a mirror that reflects time and era, that will reflect Deauville: "The expression of the nude evolves constantly according to the era, the locality, the beliefs of the country, the law, the common sense. And according to these elements, there are freedoms or prohibitions...new expressions are still quite possible.

Finally, for him, the nude is not simply a female body: the environment in which the woman evolves is determining. Because he is also a photographer of places, we owe him several books on the houses of great artists like Man Ray, the Italian filmmaker Luchino Visconti or the writer Mishima.

His invitation to Deauville was an event because for the first time, the nude was treated in the photographic productions of the Festival and the work done by Kishin Shinoyama allowed to mix the imagination of Deauville with that of Japan. He took his photos mainly in the Parc des Enclos Calouste Gulbenkian.

"Claude Lelouche's famous film, A Man and a Woman, Francis Lai's music and Anouck Aimée's charm shook and tickled the eardrums and retinas of a very young budding photographer (me at the time). Henri Cartier-Bresson, Jacques Henri Lartigue, Man Ray, Brassaï as well as the book Love on the Left Bank by the Dutchman Ed Van der Elsken were the mentors of my youth, my foundations. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the works of Bourdin, Sieff or Giacobetti were successively presented in Japan. They greatly influenced many Japanese photographers. The immense respect I had for these French artists led me to never copy them. Forty years later, by chance, I accepted this invitation to Deauville. When it was submitted to me, the idea that immediately came to mind was to pay tribute to this French photography of forty years ago. Only, to take photographs of a woman with the beauty of Anouck Aimée in Deauville, it would be a sad inspiration. So I decided to take two Japanese models. I wanted them not to fall into the easy imagery of "Fuji-Yama Geisha-Girls". However, I wanted to bring a touch of Japanese spirit and so I took with me yukata (traditional summer kimono), géta (traditional flip-flops) and old Japanese dolls. What is the result of this chemical reaction between this mythical place that is Deauville and these two Japanese models? It's up to you to find out, and I hope you'll enjoy it. This work echoes the early 1970s, with a rather nostalgic and orthodox photographic technique. I'm very happy to see the innocence, the liberated looks of two young Japanese girls darting around this town, Deauville." Kishin Shinoyama