Enter the worlds of fashion and dance through the extraordinary images of Parisian photographer Gérard Uféras at Wittgenstein Editions Gallery. Timed to coincide with Hong Kong Fashion Week 2010, “Beauty Unveiled” captures the unposed grace of models and dancers from a privileged position beyond the drop cloth. This show is a one off in Hong Kong - don’t miss it!
Backstage, Gérard Uféras is in his element. His images are alive with the applause, the music and the emotions of the spectators. As the late, great French photographer Willy Ronis wrote about Uféras’ work: "What is a great photograph? It is a photograph that makes the viewer's experience echo the emotions
felt by the photographer when the shutter clicked. When mind and heart come together in this way, it means that we are in the presence of a very great artist. We would like to use a very strong word, but we do not dare, so we say that we are witnessing that great mystery known as Grace.”
In 1998, Uféras published his fashion images in “The Fabric of Dreams”, a book prefaced by designer Christian Lacroix. But his masterpiece is possibly “In the Company of Stars”, the result of a year’s collaboration with the Paris Opera Ballet. He spent 2005 with the ballet, sharing the intimate moments of the dancers’ daily lives: the concentration, the emotion, the effort and the down time. His photographs mirror the magic of this mysterious universe, both on stage and in the studios of the Palais Garnier in Paris. Since then, Uféras has pursued his exploration of fashion, bringing the two worlds together in one remarkable collection for “Beauty Unveiled”.
“When I first saw the photographs by Gérard Uféras at the Opéra Garnier in Paris in 2006, I was enchanted by the beauty of his images and the strong emotions they evoke. After Europe and America, I am delighted to bring this wonderful exhibition to China for the first time to make the public dream and smile. The result
is really stunning,“ says Clémentine de Forton, manager of Wittgenstein Gallery.
Avoiding the unreal aesthetic of the image stolen or posed, Gérard Uféras simply transmits what he feels: the vibration of beauty.
Gérard Uféras is a member of the Rapho agency, and lives and works in Paris, France. He started his career as a photojournalist, establishing a working relationship with the French daily Libération in 1984, undertaking numerous reportage projects and organizing his debut exhibition with the paper. He helped
establish the Vu agency in 1986, and is a frequent contributor to the French and international press, including The New York Times, Madame Figaro, Beaux-Arts, Le Monde, L’Express and Lo Specchio della Stampa.
Uféras also works as a portraitist, undertakes advertising campaigns, corporate communication and fashion photography. His personal projects have culminated in exhibitions and books in various countries, and he has received several awards. His pieces are featured in many private collections, such as La Maison Europeenne de la Photographie in Paris (which organised a 120-picture retrospective of his work last summer), the National Fund of Contemporary Art (Paris), the Central Union of Decorative Arts, the Bibliotheque Nationale de France, and the National Gallery in London.
