Lust
and Pain by Guy Lemaire.
Published by Edition Reuss. ISBN-10: 3934020054
The
sadomasochistic photographs of Guy Lemaire have been widely published
in fetish/BDSM magazines in Europe and this has given him a cult following
within the fetish scene. Lacking the grace, poetry and compositional subtleties
of China Hamilton or the cold perfection of Robert Mapplethorpe - Lemaire
nonetheless still manages to hold attention with a theatricality that
reminds one of the work of Gilles Berquet. Where Lemaire differs from
Berquet's style is in the way he adds an organic feel to the images by
distressing the negatives and prints. In some cases this is done by abrasing
the surface with sandpaper - in others he has bleached part of the negative
or developed the print by brushing on the chemicals by hand.
'Lust
and Pain' is published in a hard cover, with dust jacket, and
opens with a two page introduction by Joseph Orban entitled 'The Sebastianic
Lover.' By now readers will be aware that this reviewer finds many
of the introductions that accompany photographic monographs to be problematic
at best. Most add nothing to the imagery and often come across as if having
been written by an angst-ridden student and serve no useful purpose. Orban's
piece is pretentious doggerel that gets the gender wrong, contradicts
itself and is simply painful to read - perhaps apt considering the nature
of the imagery. To be fair to Orban - it could be argued that perhaps
something was lost in the translation.
Where
possible publishers should let the photographs speak for themselves -
there can be no denying that the images in 'Lust and Pain' are powerful enough to exist on their own. If additional text is felt
to have been needed it would have perhaps been far more informative to
have replaced 'The Sebastianic Lover' with a biography of Guy
Lemaire. The 100 + monochromatic images, within this 11 inch square format
book, are printed one per page and reproduced on quality art paper to
the standard that one has come to expect from this publishing house.
Whilst not
to everyone's taste - 'Lust and Pain' is a challenging
monograph that is worthy of perusal.
Review by
Christopher John Ball
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