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Mois de la photo 2008
A new exhibition of photographs by Michael Ridley opens in Paris on November 10th. The exhibition, MOMENTS - Cirque Nouveau opens at La Petite Galerie, rue de Seine, and is one of the photo exhibitions being held in the city during November, the Month of Photography in Paris.
His last photo exhibition in Paris, Transvision, was in 2007. His images, impressionist in inspiration, are a fusion of two styles, but can best be described as art documentary of contemporary photography. Passionate about showing the world as it is in colour, his photos are reaction against the conversion of the living world into black & white.
Moments is a selection of Ridley’s of impressionist images expressing the colourful and exciting world of cirque nouveau.
The modern circus or cirque nouveau, is a new art form, combining traditional circus talents with new ones from the theatre and the street, presented in a galaxy of exciting lighting effects, original music and creative costumes. Cirque nouveau as a movement began in the 1970’s almost simultaneously in France, the UK, US, and Australia. The movement rejected many of the old ideas of the traditional circus, especially the use of animals.
But the real transformation to the modern circus began in the 1984 in Quebec, Canada, an area with no tradition of circus, with the creation of Cirque du Soleil. The same year saw the founding of other innovative circus revolutions, notably Nofitstate in Wales. Since then, the inspiration of Cirque du Soleil, Nofitstate and other cirque nouveau companies has spread world-wide and given birth to many new and exciting circuses.
Michael Ridley expresses this exciting new world of the modern circus in Moments. His images are evocative and sensuous, full of movement, expressing the world of circus in a burst of light and colour. They are sometimes questioning, ambiguous and sometimes disquieting as he explores and reflects the contemporary world as reflected by the modern circus. Moments is his impression of a floating world somewhere between shadow and light, reality and fiction.