“An intelligent outburst of laughter that challenges the ugliness of the world and its seriousness.” This is how Alexander Jardin describes the portraits of Sasha Goldberger with crossed crosses, exhibited until March 22 on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice. “Prince of positivity, lost in a century, subscribed to intense news, athlete of elegance,” the writer adds dithyrambically, this time about Goldberger himself. Jardin (alias Dracula in front of the lens) is one of 38 personalities captured by the artist-photographer in 2021 and 2022 at the height of the pandemic — his way of responding to the closure of non-essential businesses. the government decides. “Culture has finally been declared ‘inconsequential,'” he sneered at the time. time.”
Born in 1968, the Goldberger phenom worked in advertising for a long time before dedicating himself to the little black box. At the dawn of his 40th birthday, he resumed his studies at the tapestry school before offering Maminka a series and two kind crazy books about his grandmother that made him famous. This was followed by Super Flemish, a pastiche of Flemish painting that the Parisian public discovered at the Austerlitz train station at a height of 7 meters. The state of grace continued when he chained achievements into the rules of art: a hundred collaborators were mobilized for his projects, such as The Secret Eden, which created 17 diptychs from different periods. Cross Portraits, deployed in Nice, does not cut it, bringing its share of lighting and digital assistants, stylists, makeup artists, hairdressers, fashion designers and other retouchers. Backed by the Cultura brand, Goldberger transforms characters from film, song, theater or literature into emblematic cultural figures, real or fictional, ancient or modern. The result is quite pleasant, often surprising, sometimes touching, sometimes superfluous.
Penelope Baghieu, author of Regan in The Exorcist.
/ © Sasha Goldberger
Rejoicing, Guillaume Gallienne, one who naturally dwells in the role of Molière, as if he had posed for a canvas of a master of the past, while Joanne Sfar in the inquisitive Bluebeard strikes like Mathieu Chedid, like the enigmatic and disarmed Charlot. More anecdotally, comedian Caroline Vigno dons a Wonder Woman costume, Goldberger is a fan of superheroes – Mommy knows a thing or two about it… semi-decisive, he was, unsurprisingly, excluded from the Nice procession. But it is present in a pre-print book published this month by Revelatoer: 160 pages of incarnations, narrated by the portrait painters themselves or by journalist Julien Bordieu, which sheds light on their historical context.
M-Mathieu Chedid, author, composer, performer, Charlie Chaplin.
/ © Sasha Goldberger
Sasha Goldberger’s approach is reminiscent of that of the Dutchman Erwin Olaf, an aesthetic and politicized photographer who is one of his inspirations. Even if the aesthetic still prevails over the politicized among the French, not without conveying fragments of the intimacy of the “people” from whom he draws a portrait; this is what catches the eye. Winner of the Ministry of Culture’s “1 work – 1 building” award for Compagnons Renaissance and brand ambassador for Leica, the artist is currently preparing a series on feminism through the lens of Hitchcock films. To be continued…