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BOTH FROM the media world, Gérard Rancinan and Caroline Gaudriault have developed a
sophisticated perspective on contemporary society, its evolutions and its paradoxes.
Rancinan with his images, Gaudriault with her words. In a perpetual dialogue with the history
of art, the photographer and the author, ask, as committed observers, where the mad
journey on which humanity has embarked will lead us. This question has given rise to a vast
artistic voyage through the heart of the contemporary world: “The Trilogy of the Moderns”.
After the first chapter - “Metamorphoses” - showcased at the Palais de Tokyo (Paris) in
2009, and a second section entitled “Hypotheses” which was exhibited at the Chapelle
Saint-Sauveur (Issy-les-Moulineaux) in 2011, the third part of the trilogy, “A Wonderful
World” has just been completed. “A Wonderful World” will be displayed from April
28th to May 27th 2012 at the Triennale di Milano, the first museum to present “The
Trilogy of the Moderns” in its entirety, over a surface of 2000m².

While for Gérard Rancinan photography is a means of expression encompassing a huge
range of codes designed instantly to attract the gaze of the spectator, it also serves as an
instrument of reflection. Constructed over a long period of time, his photographs are
reminiscent of tableaux vivants which inescapably draw our attention, not only thanks to their
sheer size, but also thanks to their subject matter. Gérard Rancinan casts a lucid eye over
his contemporaries and their frenetic lives, as they act out their roles as victims and
profiteers of the acceleration of history, of a virtuality which is ineluctably subsuming reality,
of a science whose limitless power makes us dizzy.

Metamorphoses
In the series entitled “Metamorphoses”, Rancinan revisits masterpieces of the history of art
and focuses on the on the evolutions characterising society. Under the photographer’s lens,
Géricault’s Raft of the Medusa becomes The Raft of Illusions and recounts the desperate
flight of migrants attracted by the bright lights and seductive symbols of a land characterised
by illusory wealth. In the photographer’s version of Velasquez’s Las Meninas men and
women, slaves to their own nature, use science to fashion their bodies according to their
desires. .

Hypotheses

“Hypotheses” features an oneiric world, expressed by means of an experimental approach
to photography based on the founding theme of cultural heritage. Gérard Rancinan and
Caroline Gaudriault ask: “When 25 languages disappear from the face of the world every
year, when the civilisations which they once expressed end up as relics in the world’s
museums, what remains of our cultural memories and our individual heritage?” Hypotheses
multiply about a world in search of itself, full of promises, verging on the point of a nervous
breakdown. At the heart of this series, bubbles are metaphors not of a lack of commitment or
a retreat from our world, but of an intake of breath, a moment of reflection. They seem to
protect emblems of universal values, of passages of History, of struggles, victories and
fragile progress.

A Wonderful World

With this last part of their “Trilogy of the Moderns”, Gérard Rancinan and Caroline Gaudriault
conclude their radiographic examination of our contemporaries. With a note of derision, they
summon up a world reminiscent of an enormous funfair, an abstract realm depicted without
sentimentality. A world in which superheroes have replaced classical icons, where Mickey
Mouse, Batman and Uncle Scrooge invite us into their cartoon universes, and where politics,
art and business are no more than a game. But fiction is never far from reality…

*****

The result of seven years work, the “Trilogy of the Moderns” can be seen at the
Triennale di Milano from April 28th to May 27th 2012. This major exhibition will then be
displayed around the world.

To enable spectators to prolong their artistic experience and consider their project’s various
ramifications, each chapter is accompanied by a book in which Gerard Rancinan’s
photographs are featured alongside the texts of Caroline Gaudriault and interviews with
personalities including the historian, Stéphane Hessel, the geneticist, Axel Kahn, Cardinal
Philippe Barbarin, the politician Rama Yade, the linguist, Claude Hagège, the
anthropologist, Georges Balandier, and Pascal Boniface, Director of the French Institute
of International and Strategic Relations. All these intellectuals provide enlightened
comments on the issues highlighted by Gérard Rancinan and Caroline Gaudriault.