Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to be impressed by those who do. Especially when it comes to art. The very nice image above was shot by Parisian photographer Dani Olivier. He has published three photo books, exhibited his pieces all over France, as well as in galleries in such places as Kiev, Moscow, and Los Angeles, and describes his work as an effort to create nude portraits “that [haven’t] been shot before.” Ah, but they have been shot before, Dani, they surely have, and by one of your countrymen, no less—Fernand Fonssagrives, as we discussed here.
The photo we posted back in 2012 was one from the Fonssagrives canon that had never been seen online before, which makes it worth a gander, but for those disinclined to click over there, an example of Fonssagrives’ work from 1956 appears below. Very similar, no? We have a feeling Olivier would exclaim, “But Fonssagrives’ light is dots, while mine is sperm, you idiot!” Well, dots, sperm—maybe Fonssagrives’ is sperm too, but seen head-on.
There’s no doubting Olivier’s light patterns are more varied and detailed, however Fonssagrives might have gone in a similarly precise direction had he possessed similarly superior projection technology. In any case, we love Dani Olivier’s work. But the quote about its originality caught our eye, as well as the fact that none of the articles we checked on him mentioned Fonssagrives, so we were pretty much compelled to bring up the old master, who certainly deserves his just due.
