Alliance Française gallery Botafogo inaugurates exhibition on the feminine beauty and Urban Representation

Alliance Française gallery Botafogo inaugurates exhibition on
the female beauty and Urban Representation

Vernissage: Tuesday, 04 August, às 19h30
Visitation: from 05 august to 06 October 2015

The exhibition "Urban Princesses" photographer Raphael Blum will be opened in the Gallery of the Alliance Francaise de Botafogo on Tuesday, 04 August, às 19h30, with 20 photographs of women named by the artist as urban princesses. This exhibition is part of the celebrations of 130 years of the French Alliance in Brazil.

The images were taken in the Châtelet-les-Halles, that is both the name of the Metro station that serves the Centre of Paris and the commercial zone of Halles. Situated in the heart of Paris, the Châtelet-les-Halles is a concentration both horizontal as vertical all kinds of trades, intended mainly to women and their appearance: boutiques of prêt-à-porter, from lingeries, shoe shops, fluff, jewelry stores, beauty salons, tattoo shops or piercings and Fri-shops. It is in this scenario that the photographer is their characters, anonymous bystander, in the middle of the crowd and asks them to pose for a portrait.

From the relationship and dialogue that arises between photographer and character, amazing figures emerge in the picture, rich in meanings and strong in themselves. "The pictures taken of urban princesses honor your urban performance, leaving them the freedom of the staging and giving particular attention to their desire to appear and, therefore, to be. The image validates this desire, stating that the show happened ", explains Raphaël Blum.

From the years 90 Raphael Blum develops a multiform work of anthropological nature focused on the image of the other. This shows, the beauty and diversity of the forms of urban expression is represented by details: "We will identify the dolls by the name recorded on the skin, the makeup look, the face fuller, and the blonde hair. The Black beauties usually have a particular taste for showing off. The Ebony color and lines of their bodies, that reflected under clothes, seem to naturally put them on a pedestal of living sculptures. The Eastern princesses grow usually a provocative way and sophisticated as to its appearance, by focusing on the bright side, colorful and naked ", comments Raphael Blum.

The public may visit the exhibition "urban Princesses" 05 august to 06 October, Monday to Friday, from 10:00 to 8:00 pm, and on Saturdays, from 9:00 to 1:00 pm. Free entry.

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About the artist

He studied fine arts at the Université Paris I and graduated from the Institut des langues et civilisations orientales (INALCO, Paris). Since the end of the 90, After several trips to Latin America (Argentina, Bolivia, Brasil, Paraguay) and Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Philippines), is developing a multiform work of anthropological nature focused on the image other. The issue of exoticism remains at the heart of their research. From 2005, going on to perform typological series, collections of portraits of passers-by in South-East Asia, in Paris and in major cities of Latin America (Buenos Aires, São Paulo, River.). In 2000, was encouraged by Claude Lévi-Strauss for his work on Latin America (Argentina). The Volkenkunde Museum/National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden (Netherlands) held, in 2008, the first exhibition of his works on the Philippines (Manila, catch me if you can!). His work has been the subject of exhibitions and publications in France and abroad, in museums, arts centers, festivals and galleries.

About the Alliance Française

The French Alliance celebrates 130 years of activities in Brazil 2015. Besides being a reference in the language, she is, no doubt, the most respected institution and known the world, when it comes to the spread of the French language and Francophone cultures. She has, currently, more than 850 units 135 countries, where they study about 500.000 students. In France, it has schools and cultural centers for foreign students. The Brazil has the world's largest network of French Alliances with 40 associations and 67 units and from August more than 40 thousand students of the Brazilian network will use the new teaching method, the Alter Ego + (French Alliance Brazil version), which fit the criteria of quality of the common European framework of reference for languages defined by the Council of Europe, There is also a unique notebook developed by a team of pedagogues of the Alliance Française network Brazil working in partnership with the Publisher to address specifically the intercultural issues between France and Brazil in language learning.

It is the only institution in Brazil authorized by the Embassy of France, to apply the tests that give access to international diplomas DELF and DALF, recognized by the French Ministry of National Education. The Alliance Française is also official examination centre for international testing validity of two years TCF (The French Knowledge Test) and TEF (French Assessment Test) and the national test valid for one year Capes (recognized by agencies CAPES and CNPq MEC). The French Alliance in Brazil develops partnerships with numerous French and Brazilian companies as well as being an essential actor Franco-Brazilian cultural dialogue.