The Bulls

…my mother, having been born amidst the Yonnet bulls in the Faraman Hamlet near Salin de Giraud and my nurse, Madame Joyeuse, mother of a bullfighter, my entire childhood would seem to have urged me into the arena. My severe short-sightedness and thick glasses prevented me from getting too close to bulls — a good pretext to hide my fear…
Taking my camera with me was to take part in the show…first the bull’s death, then the celebration of great bullfighters like Ordonez, El Cordobes, Nimeno II, Paco Ojeda, to whom I dedicated books, and whose classic passes I tried to forget to find the share of mystery which stalks in the ring and which commits “the mad imprudence of showing itself” to quote Cocteau. Then came the adaptation to the flamboyance of colour and finally the double exposures with religious paintings which were the equivalent of the votive offerings given to toreadors spared by the bull thanks to the legendary “Quite du Christ” which one finds in all the churches of Spain and even in Picasso’s drawings…
I even made incursions into cinema with four films I made, of which the first was “Drama of the Bull”, from conversations with the bullfighter Victoriano Valencia. This short film won the Louis Lumière Prize and was chosen by Claude Lelouch to be shown as a prelude to his most famous film: “A Man and a Woman”.
I am happy and proud to present…the result of my faithfulness to the myth that inhabits me and which plays out on this sand, basis of my work. On the sands of the beach Venus Aphrodite was born, those of the arena see the Minotaur hunted to death…

In Spanish SAND is ARENA!

Lucien Clergue : 16 February 2010