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Who could recognize Maurice Renoma posing in front of the family clothing store at the wheel of his «cult» car from the 1960s, which he paid for by selling suits throughout Paris. His Triumph convertible will be his flying carpet - like in his favorite film, The Thief of Baghdad – it was the start of a career that would put the world at his feet. He was witness to a time when the future had no limits. He printed this good luck image on a variety of supports - including the carpet shown here, which combines three successive supports (a photo of a photo in a carpet), this image will continue its magic flight throughout Maurice’s life. ART TRIBUTE - 3
I ALWAYS PRACTICED FASHION AS AN ART, JUST LIKE PHOTOGRAPHY, WITHOUT ANY TABOOS OR PRECONCIEVED NOTIONS.
Maurice Renoma pays tribute to art and to the many forms of artistic expression of counterculture. He invites you to immerse yourself in the iconic images that have marked the history of style, fashion and art in our society. 4 - ART TRIBUTE
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By Jacques Brunel What is the uniting factor of these blurred photos? A female body magnified with analogical photography, this neo-punk collage, these scratched up photo booth shots and this exquisite still life? It holds in two letters: M.R., alias Maurice Renoma. A man who hides himself while exposing himself – he was a pioneer of the genre – refusing to copy, free to roam at his fancy in the universe of forms. His first success came from the world of fashion, and it was brilliant. Half a century ago the Renoma brand dominated the French male cloakroom. Alternative classy to scruffy hippie, his suits were a patent of dandyism for those who wore them: Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Andy Warhol, Picasso, Dali and many others… He was the Fashion designer for Fashion designers, he dressed the best stylists - Yves Saint Laurent, Karl Lagerfeld and Marc Bohan, the man from Dior - in neat trendy outfits that reflected the time. Buying one could be a little intimidating, as it made you aware of sharing a slice of history. Maurice and his brother Michel, then in their twenties, were at the helm of this dazzling adventure that began in the Carreau du Temple in Paris. This is where their father, a tailor from Poland, had his clothing store and where the Renoma brothers spent their childhood, rocked by the sound of sewing machines. In this stifling and obsolete universe, the teenage Maurice dreamed of shaking up the world, like his idol James Dean. His wish came true at rue de la Pompe, where Maurice – through clever resourcefulness – got the keys of his first
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shop, which he renamed «White House», a nod to the youthful president Kennedy. Good choice: in this chic neighborhood, clever students couldn’t stand being dressed like their fathers and dreamed of the flamboyant look of English pop stars. Thwe Renoma Brothers - became their spokesmen. Together, they developed a new look: a jacket that puffed out the chest, with arrogant shoulders and pointed lapels; pants a little too wide at the bottom, shortened to show the boots. The young trendy style was born. It will dress the yéyé generation, Gainsbourg in the lead. Finding success can be easy. But maintaining it requires rare qualities. In the1970-80’s, Renoma expands and diversifies his lines. Maurice the self-taught man, becomes a savvy businessman – forerunner on many levels quick to seize new opportunities (implantation throughout the Far East, licenses…). His innovative men’s outfits with their androgynous accents captured the taste of the time. He also developed a line for women that complemented it: his woman’s tuxedo was very successful, even before Yves Saint Laurent’s came out. Fiercely independent, Maurice created his collections himself and refused all offers to sell his brand. While he was at it, he also illustrated his catalogs… since fashion photos of the time did not reflect life or capture his ideas. His first steps in photography opened up an entirely different option. This exciting new vector became a tool to express quickly and in a thousand ways what a garment has to say: the magic of a moment, the brilliance of nudity, a strange atmosphere, a millefeuille
of emotions… A clothing designer can spot attitudes, the details of an expression, a swaying, a thousand little things, from which he will make emerge a new look. Typically a designer’s photos stagnate on the storyboard, waiting for the next collection. Not Maurice’s. He is an insatiable voyeur, a clairvoyant, and a visionary, with a compulsion for writing with light (which is the definition of photography) about everything that life brings his way: travels to far-off places, close friendships, love, ecstasy and milestone events… The fine tuned motor of his imagination allows him to cross the barriers of genre - sensual photos, portraits, graphic studies - with the fluidity of an ice skater (a sport at which he excels), adapting his choices to the unforeseen fortunes that life reserves for him. Maurice Renoma was born under a lucky star. «Luck is my second self», and he follows it with unwavering trust, convinced that there are no bad experiences, when examined with an open mind. Destiny’s protection is confirmed by the abundant presence of his magic number, 23 (his date of birth) throughout his life. Coco Chanel and Christian Dior also believed in these signs… His enthusiasm, open to all changes and even to errors, as long as they are instructive; his candor revives the soul of the pioneers of photography. It is not surprising that this sensual man, used to caressing tweed or vicuna, has a weakness for the photographic process: he is interested in the form, knowing that with it comes the substance. Analogical, digital or filter treatment of images, paintings and videos, scratched or burnt pictures, images printed
on fabrics or aphorisms on Fluxus treated panels, the possibilities of this polymorph are unlimited. This harvest of unique images, often born of happy accidents (Hole, inspired by the economic crisis, will finally lead to positive images), or from an obsession pushed to its limit, as in this series of collages: sulphurous (with the bearded face on a woman’s body, a nod to masculin femininity) or poetic (with the Leonardo style Last Supper, with Warhol as Christ and Lou Reed as Judas), we do not know if he dresses reality in Renoma style. The most enduring medium for Maurice who likes nothing more than to juggle with everything - remains the Renoma Café Gallery, the restaurant-tea room, Avenue George-V, in Paris, for which he designed the decor and the furniture: there you can admire (and buy) his photographs, in a warm artsy atmosphere with his regular clientele. «Trouble and introspection are marks of decadence», says Renoma. This formidable strategist’s reflections – often intense - are all about action, knowing that chance will have the last word. The artist, his alter ego, presents himself as a man on the move, as blind as Luck, and who reaps his images on the roads of life. A singular approach and a challenge to the standards that have allowed his unclassifiable work to be consecrated by Jean-Luc Monterosso and Henry Chapier, in Parisian institutions of photography. With such allies, there is no room for nostalgia, even with such a glorious past. Driven by his activity as a photographer, Renoma lives the future in the present - the only time that exists. Following the precept of Michel Houellebecq, his friend, he chooses to «stay alive».
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House of Photography of Lille - 2014
The «MAURICE RENOMA exhibition, One + One = 3» reveals an eclectic creativity, an unclassifiable and insatiable personality, constantly in search of renewal. This is the first major retrospective of Maurice Renoma’s photographic work in France, following the publication of a monograph published by La Martinière. ART TRIBUTE - 9
His first steps in photography were sanctioned by blurred images. But for the artist, this accident was a stroke of luck. Maurice Renoma entered a parallel universe in a fluid blur, filled with scary or sublime ghost images. In sewing, the art of ethereal design, governs fluid fabric. It is the vaporous material used by impressionists, by Gerhard Richter and Chinese painters. Because he explored the other side of reality, reserved for the clairvoyant and the myopic, the aspiring artist found himself dubbed by his peers. Dominica Issermann called him «fellow photographer» and Karl Lagerfeld – also a virtuoso of the still image, as well as a creator of fashion – bought four copies of his first book «Renoma Maurice, modographer».
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RENOMA (NHM) - PORTRAIT 2009
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From analogical to digital, black and white to color, with graphic designs using unexpected materials, Maurice Renoma continues to defy established codes and has fun inventing new rules.
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Portrait 2015D / 2015
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Do not disturb en sous-sol - Série Noire - 2018
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The last memory of the Chelsea Hotel - before renovation made it unrecognizable - is the staircase that the residents (Leonard Cohen, Allen Ginsberg, Bob Dylan, Andy Warhol, Nico, Patti Smith…) must have climbed on all fours more than once, after partaking in various substances. In front of Maurice Renoma’s lens, this springboard to glory suddenly becomes convulsive, it’s steps go round and around in absurd infinity, where going down equals to going up. The perfect psychedelic tribute to this iconic den, where Jack Kerouac wrote «On the road».
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«CHELSEA 1011-CAPGRAP-36» / 2015 «MYSTÈRE 010M» / 2000
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RENOMA-1023-CHELSEA•LAYOUT-05
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RENOMA-1021-CHELSEA•LAYOUT-04A // RENOMA-1022-CHELSEA•LAYOUT-04B
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COMPO FLOU MYSTERE PHOTO12
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Série Néo-Fusion - 450 /2002 // Série Néo-Fusion - 311 /2002
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Série R 704J / 2007
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RENOMA-828
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« I tried to capture this crazy energy with all the richness and confusion it has to offer us. » Maurice Renoma
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San Francisco 971-C2264 / 2012
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The Beat generation 38 - ART TRIBUTE
What we love when we are twenty shapes us forever. Icons of youth, James Dean (the rebellious son), Kennedy (the playboy president) and Andy Warhol (the post-modernism messiah) come back to life in Maurice Renoma’s collages, depicted as heroes of religious ceremonies. The homosexual heroin addict, writer William Burroughs, trades in his three-piece suit for a Renoma parka, more becoming, while Marilyn in a gala dress prays at the feet of James Dean, the eternal crucified. A scene all the more strange since these two giants hated each other...
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«The only people that exist for me are the fools, those who are crazy about living, crazy about speaking, crazy about being saved, eager for everything at the same time, those who never yawn and who are never bored but who burn, burn, burn like fabulous Roman torches, exploding like fireworks in the constellations, and in the middle of the show, the enormous blue central firecracker appears and everyone exclaims: Aaaah…» Jack Kerouac
James Dean et Marilyn Monroe, 03DEAN05 conception graphique Maurice Renoma / 2011
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The Last Supper M04PUNK07, conception graphique Maurice Renoma / 2012
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«DESERT MYTHO» / 2015
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Is this handsome jackal-god, Anubis, lord of the dead at the time of the Pharaohs? This legendary man/ beast creature is reinterpreted by Renoma : heads of dogs, horses, cows and deer adorn human busts, as they do on the collages of Max Ernst. They are all remarkably beautiful and seem more human than humans. In this teeming zoo, there reigns a ÂŤfurryÂť spirit, where the animal is more than the totem of our instincts: as independent as it is innocent, it is the intellectual guide of all social misfits. ART TRIBUTE - 51
M YTHOLOGIES
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Jungle Ville / 2008
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For the artist, there is no nostalgia of better times, but the possibility of a somewhere else. 58 - ART TRIBUTE
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Légende ART TRIBUTE - 63
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An assumed freedom, mixed with a desire to live and discover.
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Snapshots of the teeming streets of this metropolis evoke moments and emotions accumulated during his trips to Japan. With his photos, Maurice Renoma conveys the atmosphere of a paradoxical universe. His lens scans neighborhoods in search of the unusual, stalking the essential and inescapable figures of Japanese’s urban life. The aesthetics built on the spontaneity of a gesture and the speed of vision, reflect all the contrasts of this country. Japan, a distorted mirror of western culture, is captured by the eye of Maurice Renoma. A theater of extremes where every character is played to his limit by himself. His images capture the contradiction of this society that oscillates between vital energy and schizophrenia.
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It’s life itself and the surprising normality of all experiences, that become the main subject of my photos.
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« My photographs incite creation and multiply it; they are rapid and instant art. No need to look back. »
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Maurice Renoma and Michel Houellebecq, or the meeting of two like minds, driven by the same disgust of good taste. “Stay alive” – the title of the exhibition organized by the writer at the Palais de Tokyo, in 2016 – are the key words of the photographer. For the occasion, Houellebecq asks Maurice Renoma to decorate an «Erotic room», with his images. The creator covers it with a pattern of «pubic hairs». Inspired by the texture of a fabric, these arabesques made for camouflage, also evoke the protective grids of the forbidden fruit. They will stimulate the creativity of photographer.
Maurice Renoma et Michel Houelllbecq
It ’s curious but sometimes you almost give the impression of wanting to disown your clothes and your fabrics; although they are part of your work, to me that seems obvious. It ’s all the more curious since at the moment there are lots of fashion designers who think they are artists (but for whom I am incapable of distinguishing their creations). Michel Houellebecq
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Lost Effect 08 / 2015
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Non-conformist and iconoclast, Maurice Renoma’s photography is an assembly of fragments of life, an intimate game around counter-models. Scratching, burning, the “I” becomes “Other” and allows «the disturbing strangeness» to emerge.
« The look, that window through which flow the most intimate tales and stories. » «SUO22A» / 1994
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«LE TROU 766M» / 2009
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«LE TROU 749» / 2009
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Women are an eternal source of inspiration. By fragments, Maurice Renoma reveals their bodies dressed or undressed. Each photographic creation is an act of passion. SĂŠrie AcadĂŠmique - Renoma004 / 1994
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Série Psychédélique WX 02- 1046 / 2015
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Légende Légende
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I break away the codes of form and matter.
I believe only in myself or in Luck, my second self.
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Cécile, Série Noire / 2018
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«CG C#06P.04A» / 2018 «420A» / 1996
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Mystère D01 Mystère D04 / 2014
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«SN-S13» / 2014
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Maurice Renoma with painter Carlos Quintana and director-photographer Enrique Rottenberg
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To celebrate its reopening next June, the Fabrica de Arte Cubano will expose the transgressive universe of Maurice Renoma through a photographic journey and a scenographic installation created on site, with recycled materials. This is the first time a French photographer has exhibited at the Fabrica, the place to be in Cuban culture and which has kept its original atmosphere of ancient oil refinery. For this event, Maurice Renoma chose to surround himself with the painter Carlos Quintana and the director-photographer Enrique Rottenberg, to create an artistic exchange around three reflections on Humanity.
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Caught up by the reality of Cuba today, the photographer was able to feel and absorb the atmosphere of a place where time has stood still and where the population, despite the austerity of life, has left its doors and windows open to the Other, in hope of a better world. Fusion works
A follower of transgression and hybridization, Maurice Renoma likes to provoke the imagination of others. During his two exhibitions in Cuba, including the spectacular scenography at the Fabrica of Arte Cubano, he had the occasion to meet the Cuban painter Carlos Quintana and the visual artist Jorge Luis Miranda Carracedo. These artistic friendships lead to a cross-reflection on Humanity and a desire for humanistic consciousness. Painting and photography intersect and intertwine, around an inexhaustible exchange of ideas. The result of this fusion tells the story of Man at the height of intimacy and introspection, with in the backdrop, his desperate desire to find his roots.
Jorge Luis Miranda Carracedo, painting on a photograph by Maurice Renoma / 2017
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Jorge Luis Miranda Carracedo, painting on a photograph by Maurice Renoma / 2017
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Jorge Luis Miranda Carracedo, painting on a photograph by Maurice Renoma / 2017
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Carlos Quintana, painting on a photograph by Maurice Renoma / 2017 Mythologies II - Renoma-895-733 / 2013
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«ARLES # C4377» / 2011 MUJER CON ABSTRACTO / Carlos Quintana, painting on a photograph by Maurice Renoma / 2017
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Carlos Quintana, painting on a photograph by Maurice Renoma / 2017
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RQR is the name of a unique scenography created by Maurice Renoma at La Fabrica de Arte, Havana: a crazy mix of recycled materials, of photographs exposed from floor to ceiling and works that fuse together photographs and paintings created with the complicity of the artists Quintana and Rottenberg. ART TRIBUTE - 131
Piango Piango, sculpture by Maurice Renoma produced by Jorge Luis Miranda Carracedo 132 - ART TRIBUTE
Views of the RQR exhibition, La Fabrica, Havana, Cuba.
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«A scarf is as musical as any other piece of clothing. I am a pure product of the rock’n’roll generation, and I think that clothes and attitudes can create inspiration. Clothes dance, and rock is movement. There has always been music in my creations. Creation is above all an assemblage, and in my case, an assembly of notes, materials and rhythms. Clothes that look like freedom. A bit like the wind...» Excerpt from Maurice Renoma’s interview by Balthazar, for the 2018 Art Series Special Edition by Technikart.
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Renoma, modographer A book published in 1999 defines Maurice Renoma by an intriguing neologism: «Modographer»... Indeed it was necessary to invent a word to define this passionate man overflowing with ideas who is a fashion designer as well as an interior designer, a photographer and a scenographer: the term modography, unites his two main passions, fashion and photography, intrinsically. Before making photography his essential mode of expression, Maurice Renoma had largely contributed to reinventing fashion since the 1960s, creating the brand Renoma, with its outlandish and transgressive new dress codes that contrasted with the austere fashion codes of the time. Considering fashion as a form of art in its own right, Renoma expressed an original vision, free from any aesthetic prejudice. Renoma fashion dares unprecedented associations like suits created with upholstery fabric or technical materials, flashy colors, sculptural or asymmetrical cuts. The classic English blazer becomes close fitting and shorter with deep slits and narrow shoulders, the pants are straight and low-waisted. The Renoma style becomes famous: stars from around the world come to the Renoma store located rue de la Pompe in the 16th arrondissement of Paris: Andy Warhol, Catherine Deneuve, the sulphurous couple Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin, Brigitte Bardot, Picasso, Dali, Jean Seberg, John Lennon, Helmut Newton, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Yves Saint-Laurent, Jack Nicholson, King Pelé or the Rolling Stones... Today, Renoma collections are present in France (Paris), Japan, Singapore, in Korea, China, Malaysia, Miami and Cuba…
Maurice Renoma and unbiased photography In the early 1990s, Maurice Renoma, disappointed by talented but conventional photographers who couldn’t grasp his atypical and transgressive universe, turned to photography himself to take a hand in the artistic direction of his advertising campaigns for his brand Renoma. Photography quickly became his favorite mode of expression. He approached it with candor and passion as a dilettante, just like with fashion. «I believe that the essential thing in life is to always express oneself. Photography allows me to go further. It is a form of art, and I have always wanted to practice fashion as an art, without taboo or bias». His camera becomes his accomplice, witness to his journeys around the world. With his lens, Maurice Renoma captures the authentic moments, and finds poetry everywhere: in a man, a woman or an animal, in the urban jungle of Tokyo or the Normandy countryside… His first series of photos was shot in black and white ASA film 400 and were totally blurred. Maurice Renoma exposed this accidental series: reviews poured in and Dominique Issermann paid tribute to the talent of his «colleague photographer». «... the career of Maurice Renoma is a continuous series of visual productions using different media: he goes from analogical to digital and from photography to video.» He captures images, modifies them on a screen, puts them back together and recycles them. A photograph is likely to relive in another environment, after undergoing a treatment that changes its nature and form.»
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Acte Pulsionnel 002A / 2016
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THANKS Thanks to the whole Renoma team and to Jacques Brunel. Artistic direction : Maurice Renoma Photographs and graphic design: Maurice Renoma Graphics: Adelap Scenography: Alexandra Rubio, Judith Sarfati Illustrations: Diane Bellier Texts: Jacques Brunel, Maurice Renoma, Anne-Sophie Rivière Translation : Reine-Marie Vergnes
Reserved rights: all the images reproduced in this book are the property of the artist Maurice Renoma. They cannot be used without the artist consent.
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