"The Giants, Camargue"

gelatin silver print

signed (ink) in the margin, titled, dated and numbered by the photographer (ink) on verso

“La Camargue est un théâtre sauvage où la lumière écrit ses propres poèmes.”
(The Camargue is a wild theater where light writes its own poems.)
Lucien Clergue: Née de la vague, Éditions du Chêne, 2004

French photographer Lucien Clergue was known for his erotic, but never voyeuristic, nude photography. In this work, nature and the body, eroticism and landscape, man and element merge in a poetic way. The reclining bodies become “gigantic” natural forms, such as hills or waves. This deliberate blurring of scale is a central theme of the work. Light and shadow emphasize the curves and create an almost surreal, abstract effect. The three female bodies lie in the surf on a beach in the Camargue, modeled by the light and the waves. The region itself seems to be a co-creator rather than just a setting.
Clergue was born in 1934 in Arles, a town on the edge of the Camargue. The region was not only a geographical reference point for him, but also an emotional and cultural one. He often spoke of the Camargue as a place of wildness, sensuality, and spirituality.
(Christoph Fuchs)