Bettina Rheims and Serge Bramly's "Rose C'est Paris" is both a photographic monograph and a feature-length film on DVD. This extraordinary work of art, in two different but interlocking and complimentary formats, defies easy categorization. For in this multi-layered opus of poetic symbolism, photographer Bettina Rheims and artist Serge Bramly evoke the City of Light in a completely novel way: this is a Paris of surrealist visions, confused identities, artistic phantoms, unseen manipulation, obsession, fetish and seething desire. Equal parts erotica, fashion shoot, art monograph, metaphysical mystery, social and cultural archeaology of the French capital, and neo-noir arthouse movie - "Rose, C'est Paris" is all of these and more. In a surrealistic inversion of the oft-imitated 1954 Parisian photobook by Ed van Elsken, "Love On The Left Bank", this mesmerising work is the meandering tale of twin sisters, known only as B and R, and a third principal - the city itself.When R returns to their apartment and learns that B has been abducted following a violent struggle, a dreamlike detective story unfolds in black and white on the streets, in the cafes and cabarets, epicieries and musees, usines abondonees, and grands hotels of Paris.
But even this notional plot is submerged under layers of echo, reference and homage - to artists like Rene Magritte, Marcel Duchamp, Salvador Dalf, and Man Ray; to the brilliant amorality of the Fantomas pulp novels of the early 20th century; to photographers Lee Miller, Helmut Newton, Larry Clark, Henri Lartigue, Guy Bourdin and Jeanloup Sieff; to various mythical sites and monuments of Paris. What happened to the missing sister? Was there a plot? Was she really kidnapped? Is she alive or dead? Was it murder? Suicide? Or just a nightmare? Or is she now a punk rocker, a prostitute, a cabaret dancer, or possibly even a nun? Did she marry and flee to India? Does R know more than she claims? Or perhaps B has adopted her sister's identity - and it is in fact R who has gone missing. Rheims and Bramly create a series of extraordinary tableaux suggesting all these possibilities and many more.Featuring a host of extraordinary figures, from Naomi Campbell, Monica Belluci, and Michelle Yeoh, to family members, fashion models, porn stars and le pipole of Parisian society, "Rose C'est Paris" is both immediately accessible as a delicious visual treat, a refreshingly original work of erotica and a celebration of Paris that sidesteps all the usual cliches.
And yet the work remains infinitely mysterious in the way it plays with genre and narrative, allusion and expectation. Like the city itself, it can never be fully defined or explained, only experienced again and again. It is available in a luxurious XL-format limited edition of 1,500 to 2,000 (tbc) copies, each numbered and signed by Rheims et Bramly. It is also available in an Art Edition of 100 copies, with a signed and numbered silver gelatine print.
