Hyper-Rio by Jean-François Rauzier

By Marc Pottier, exhibition curator

This photographic, cubist, mosaic, surreal artist, digital baroque artist in the context of celebrations of 450 years of the city of Rio de Janeiro, he presents us with a carioca hyper-landscape as yet unseen.

Let us think on the definition of ‘Hyper’: prefix, from the Greek huper, “over”, above, indicating a superior position in space, or a greater intensity or possessing a property superior to normal. “Intensity” is a word is well suited to the works of this artist. His photographs printed in huge formats intensify the world he sees. He makes a hyper-collage on the computer where each one of his works are stored and composes them with a considerable number of images he captured during his travels, creating a sort of match between the macro and the micro, the virtual and the real. Thereby giving us original and unusual versions of cities, landscapes or of the other subjects he depicts.

The perfect reality is no longer a subject for Jean-François Rauzier. The eye of the beholder loses its bearings in the offered profusion and in all the angles covered. ” Sometimes to look both wider and closer, stopping time to examine all the details of the frozen image,” emphasizes the artist.

Digital images allow Rauzier this masterful pointillism where his Russian dolls spread out almost to infinity. The viewer is asked to hunt for details and if he sees everything at the same time, all the elements of the memory of the subject matter are delivered in a single image, he must patiently pay attention to the game of reconstitution proposed. Jean-François Rauzier, uses his well thought out and well constructed works with the most hidden layers of the places he visits. He believes in the superior reality of certain forms and in the unconcerned play of thoughts.

However, even if the works of Jean-François Rauzier are neither random nor unconscious, his extremely elaborate compositions and his ‘ controlled surrealism ‘ end by liberating creation from limitations or logic. He transforms the world avoiding preconceived subjects as André Breton used to say, resting new associations on certain forms, like the strength of a dream in a world without limits. This is how characters, animals, a glut of objects, floods, balloons come to inhabit his generous vistas and their architecture or the repeated and mixed landscapes. If Jean-François Rauzier is without mannerism, as is the Baroque style, he knows how with virtuosity to multiply the effects of illusion. Using the possibilities of the digital, his ‘show’ photographs combine the perspectives of his compositions with the play of light and shadow achieving a new kind of realism. Without eccentricity he plays with the unexpected and in a way designed to evoke emotion. His structured Style plays abundantly with the fantastical as with symmetry to pay homage to the heritage of the cities where he sets its sights. He recreates his incredible imaginary architectures playing with the search for the most unexpected and most theatrical effect, in a style that is only his and makes his “oeuvre” something incredibly uncommon.

This exhibition proposes a great ‘carioca’ journey where the viewer can recognize some iconic images of the city, the famous Christ on the Corcovado, the São Bento Convent, the Parque Lage or the Selaron Lapa stairs but he will also have to rack his brains to identify certain details of lesser known monuments such as the staircases of the National Library, the Ministry of Finance or the Automobile Club. Some images become great dizzying kaleidoscopes that sometimes, if one pays attention, become great magical masks paying a subtle tribute to the mood of the Marvelous City.

(*) Term coined by curator & Brazilian journalist Gilberto de Abreu