PLAY was among the nominees for the First Photographic Book Prize at Paris Photo x Aperture 2022. This is an opportunity to revisit the work of this image maker through this dynamic and first monograph, reflecting his fifteen years of photographic work.
To grasp the unique vision of Philippe Jarrigeon's style, PLAY is the epitome. Seen as a parody of a major Hollywood studio, the first large-format book by the 40-year-old French photographer, a graduate of the Lausanne Cantonal Art School (ECAL), invites us into the world of 1990s television and film. Here, sarcasm and fantasy reign supreme. Between portraits, still lifes, landscapes, architecture, and fashion, his vibrant imagery reveals his attention to detail, his penchant for diptychs, and his particular sensitivity to the object. Philippe Jarrigeon plays with the polysemous word in the title, offering different levels of interpretation that encompass fifteen years of experience. In this mental and visual library, where "everything seems deviant," he summons Beetlejuice, the heroine of Vertigo, the praying mantis from Microcosmos, and even Cher Horowitz from Clueless. But he also invites Afghan hounds in the company of women on a baroque bed, while brandishing his golden pistol, armed with a tube of lipstick.
POP CULTURE AND MODERN AESTHETICS
All the iconography here stems from the numerous clients for whom he has worked and from whom many images have been taken. Philippe Jarrigeon has collaborated with luxury brands (Chanel, Roger Vivier, Louis Vuitton…), artists in the music industry (Snoop Dogg…), and magazines (Vogue, Double, Purple, PIN-UP Magazine…). This proponent of taking a different approach has always been “fascinated by the window display,” as he puts it in the interview printed in a booklet included in the book. Here, he elevates, energizes, and even exalts the diversity of his work, creating his own interplay with a sequence of images reminiscent of television channel surfing.
His career is a collection of eclectic and colorful creations where " Glamour coexists with consumer goods, the exceptional with the trivial, the beautiful with the ugly, the overly serious with the overly funny In its chromatic progression, this first monograph, conceived with the help of Beda Achermann as art director, takes on the appearance of a "color-sensor novel." An invitation to (re)discover her work at the crossroads of worlds, filled with humor, incongruity, sex appeal, and "bittersweet memories."
PLAY BY PHILIPPE JARRIGEON
RGB BOOKS, 2021 – €38
WWW.PHILIPPEJARRIGEON.COM
