It is a sign of the ambivalence of our contemporary societies that we display everywhere the bodies of top models, men or women, in which nobody can recognize themselves, sometimes not even those who posed for these images. The body is an incarnation of the enigma of presence, all the more so when the codes are broken down and the viewer cannot simply contemplate these beautiful creatures posing lasciviously with a smile which is an invitation to join them. And these women that Stéphane Chavanis’s camera parades before our eyes, their gaze suspended, await not a joy but a task to be fulfilled which disconcerts them more or less although they put on a brave face . They are moving because of what is left unsaid of their history, the quiet way in which each one, in her own style, plays with and appropriates the arm-chair prop ; they are touching because of what one imagines about them, their reasons for posing, and the sadness that can sometimes be detected in their face. The body is our
condition. Stéphane Chavanis reminds us powerfully of man’s unbearable fragility, his derision and his grandeur, that supreme elegance of being at once everything and so little.