In the midle of 90's, CHAVANIS suddenly abandoned painting, sculpture, and carving to give himself sorely to writing and photograph.

It was at the end of this fertile period of transition that the started to conceive these famous, fantastic installations that seem to have the wonderful property of dispossessing them of the substance of the burden of their weight. The most spectacular such realization is still unquestionnably the suspension of a V-MAX motorcycle. We are utterly astonished to realize at which point the simple fact of seeing such a speed demon levitated makes it unrecognizable. Depossessed of its mass, the two wheels find thermselves at the same time emptied of all the values with which thez are symbolically associated. Therefore, what remains exhibited to our eyes is only an absurd object ; unreal by seeming ethereal.

To really understand the meaning of his current work, however, we have to come back to the work of this intermediary period. Because, before starting to explore the diverse possibilities offered by suspension, Stéphane CHAVANIS felt the need to study more attentively the concept of gravity. Thus, these one hundred photos of women "..." It is indeed what evinces the invariably lifeless masks that enable us to see this overwhelming gallery of portraits.

Frédéric Blanc