Galerie W 44 rue Lepic 75018 Paris France
Mois de la photo 2010 Point information 5,7 rue de Fourcy 75004 Paris France
Philippe Vermès took these portraits over a couple of years in the late 8O’s during two major rallies: one in Sturgis, South Dakota, and the other in London, New Hampshire.
Sturgis is a small town near the Badlands, an area of sand dunes and trails where filmmakers shoot Westerns and tourists visit the sacred burial ground of the Sioux Indians. Mount Rushmore is nearby.
Traditionally, bikers gather by the thousands at the annual Sturgis rally: a huge outdoor fair, an extravaganza. The bikers show up in esoteric costumes or dress up in clothes that are emblematic of the conquest of the mythological American West. They herald the legends and calls of the Western frontier with its Indians, gold diggers, wanderers and explorers.
Philippe Vermès wanted to know more about them, to learn more from the inside; so, he set up an outdoor, makeshift studio and slung up a black backdrop on the side of the road near a gas station. He put up my old wooden 4 X 5 inch camera, a light box, and an electronic flash. Intrigued by the “studio”, the magic of the positive/negative Polaroid film, the bikers came for a portrait with their partners, family members, dogs, spouses and bikes.
In Philippe Vermès's book Straightening Out the Corners (Portraits of American Bikers and Their Bikes), A.D. Coleman writes “Anyone who’s wondered what became of Robert Frank’s black bikers – or the alienated young white working – class cyclists later heroicized by Frank’s disciple, Danny Lyon, can turn to these studies by Philippe Vermès. Perhaps they’re to be found here”. And like the typical small town itinerant portrait photographer, Vermès accords them the right to be observed acceptingly and non-judgmentally. What results are information – heavy portraits, rich in detail – close observations that stem from two traditions, one photographic, the other painterly.