Bettina Rheims

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Bettina Rheims: Self-Portrait, 2013

Bettina Rheims [ ʀɛ̃s ] (born December 18, 1952 in Neuilly-sur-Seine ) is a French photographer . The provocative-erotic productions in her nude and glamor photography made her known worldwide.

Life

Bettina Rheims is the oldest of the writer's three children, a member of the Académie Française , art historian and auctioneer Maurice Rheims (1910–2003), who was also the administrator of Pablo Picasso , and Lili Adélaide Krahmer (1930–1996) from Frankfurt , a stepdaughter of Guy de Rothschild , who fled Germany from the National Socialists with her mother, a daughter of the banker Julius Wertheimber . The writer and film producer Nathalie Rheims (* 1959) is her sister.

Before she made a career as a photographer, Rheims worked as a photo model. In 1973 she played a small role in the gangster comedy La bonne année (France / Italy 1973, director: Claude Lelouch ).

Rheims' first marriage to Pierre Martinet (* 1949) was concluded in 1971 and divorced in 1977. In 1978 she married the art historian and writer Serge Bramly , with whom she published several books. With him she has a son, Virgile Maurice Bramly (* 1980). The marriage was also divorced, but the artistic collaboration did not end. Her third husband was the artist Stéphane Coutelle, from whom she also divorced. In 2001 she married the Paris lawyer Jean-Michel Darrois (* 1948).

Bettina Rheims lives and works in Paris.

plant

In 1970 Rheims started taking photos. Her first models were Parisian strippers and acrobats. The theme of the female body in erotic and voyeuristic situations has run through her entire work since then.

In 1987 she made the video for Desireless Voyage, Voyage .

She worked for fashion magazines, record labels and advertising agencies . Unlike many of the anonymous commissioned photographers in this industry, however, she also exhibited regularly under her name. Her first illustrated book, Female Trouble , was published in 1991.

She achieved widespread international fame in 1992 with the volume Chambre Close ( German : "locked room"). Rheims' photographs show young women in half-naked poses, which should appear as if they had spontaneously exposed their genitals for a (male) photographer in shabby hotel rooms or hallways. In fact, they are stagings . Serge Bramly wrote the accompanying text, the fictional diary of an amateur erotic photographer.

Together with the transsexual Kim Harlow, she published the biographical book Kim in 1992 . Harlow died of AIDS in Paris in 1992 . She was one of the models Rheims photographed for the Modern Lovers series .

In 1995 Rheims was commissioned to paint the official portrait of the newly elected President of France , Jacques Chirac .

Another collaboration with Bramly is the INRI series , which was exhibited for the first time in 1999 in Berlin at the German Historical Museum . In 200 color and some black and white photographs, Rheims and Bramly recreated scenes from the life of Christ . The publication in France drew heavy criticism from Christians . There were anti-Semitic riots by right-wing extremists against some bookshops that sold Rheims' photo book.

In 2008 she was fined 30,000 euros for plagiarizing a work by the German artist Jakob Gautel that she used for an assembly.

Quote

“I am a woman, I am also a feminist . I take photos with women and for women. I would never force my models to do something I didn't want people to do to me. My view of women is neither voyeuristic nor masculine. By the way, it is mainly women who like my pictures. Probably because on them the sexual is connected with pleasure and not with pain as is often the case in art. "

- Bettina Rheims : Interview with Berliner Zeitung , November 27, 1999

Awards

  • 1994: Her hometown Paris awarded her the Grand prix de la photographie .
  • 2002: Jacques Chirac awarded Bettina Rheims the order Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur for her life's work.

Publications

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Bettina Rheims (French, born 1952) , biography at Artnet
  2. ↑ diepresse.com ( Memento from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ Of reality that has nothing to do with life . In: Berliner Zeitung , November 27, 1999; interview
personal data
SURNAME Rheims, Bettina
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French photographer
DATE OF BIRTH 18th December 1952
PLACE OF BIRTH Neuilly-sur-Seine