Fleurs

Serie of flowers for small platinum prints. FLEURS text by Silvia Sfrecola Romani. Paraphrasing a famous definition of Bertrand Morane, protagonist of “The man who loved women” ( a film from F. Truffaut) who said about women’s legs “they are the compasses that measure the earth in all directions”, we can define Bollinger’s flowers as these compasses “that give balance and harmony” to the earth. Bollinger’s flowers parade like models of high fashion in a master of seduction, a Valentino of photography, for his refinement, care of detail, and above all for the refined sensuality, but never vulgarity, of each photograph. Be they pulpy succulents or charming lilies, rigid anthurium or yielding honeysuckle, luxurious fuchsia or faded tulips, blazoned roses or haughty orchids, Bollinger knows how to exalt the most authentic beauty, the kind of beauty that does not need frills, tricks and disguises but ‘only’ the light and shot that will naturally have to be perfect. Bollinger aims at the aesthetical and mathematical purity that is paradoxically passionate, like the true and absolute love. And to do it he can only use the view camera, eulogy of the slowness (each shot might need 30 to 60 minutes) and also the search for perfection (the use of large format films allow a high quality image). In Bollinger’s vision, the fascination lies in his subtle game of a collective unconscious that are archetypes or cultural models, religious and mythical, eternal and transcendent that from the substance lead to the idea. Bollinger has chosen this way with caution, trying to transcend the original object , be it a flower or an architecture from South Italy, to arrive at the archetype. Dominique has the gift of gracefulness, of measure and especially of elegance defined in a famous Valentino’s aphorism “the balance between proportions, emotions and surprise”.