Gérard Rancinan

Gérard Rancinan started his career as an Apprentice in the laboratory of the photo department of the daily newspaper of Bordeaux, Sud Ouest. After three years in the darkroom, at the age of 18 he became the youngest photojournalist in France covering the news of the region. When he was 21, he was sent to a newspaper agency in Pau.
In 1973, he was spotted by the newly founded Sygma press agency, and Rancinan decided to sign a distribution deal with the newspaper. firm. Five years later, he became Sygma’s staff photographer in Paris. He covered current events – earthquakes in Algeria to political upheaval in Poland, war in Lebanon, riots in England; sporting events (Olympic Games, world championships in athletics); film shoots (Ran by Akira Kurosawa, Betty Blue by Jean-Jacques Benix, Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor); show business, fashion and cinema. He left Sygma in 1986 to set up his own agency before going independent again in 1989. His portraits of leading personalities (Fidel Castro, Pope John Paul II, François Mitterrand, Monica Bellucci, Tiger Woods, Yasser Arafat, Bill Gates, etc.) and his photographic «sagas» describing major social events have been published on the front pages of Paris Match, Life Magazine, Stern, and the Sunday Times Magazine. Rancinan has also worked regularly with Sports Illustrated since 1984. In his projects, he collaborates with writers, journalists, thinkers, sociologists, anthropologists and philosophers (Caroline Godriault, Paul Virilio, Francis Fukuyama, etc.).
In the 1990s, he produced Rancinan’s exhibition Urban Jungle in Paris in 2000. Ransinan’s work has been exhibited in galleries and museums (Museu d’Art Contemporain Barcelona: Portrait of Natalie, Triennale di Milano: Portraits of Cardinals, Paris: Metamorphoses), Trilogy of Contemporaries, Triennale di Milano – Museum of Modern Art, Italy. and is held in private collections of contemporary art.
At an auction at l’ Hôtel Drouot in 2008, his work sold for a price comparable to the upper echelons of French contemporary art. photographers. His photograph Batman Girls sold for a record price at auction in London in May 2012. Sold by Étude Pillon in Versailles on 18 May 2014, Rancinan’s «Feast of Barbarians» achieved the highest price of any French photographer.
Rancinan photographs his contemporaries and analyses the behaviours and beliefs characteristic of contemporary society. Rancinan’s photographs are studied in schools in France as part of the National Diploma (DNB) in Art History.
7 January 2013. Laurent Fabius, French Foreign Minister, invited Rancinan to show in a room at the Quai d’Orsay his photograph «Batman Boys», promoting the work of contemporary French artists abroad.

2024 – «Memento vivere. Remember to live.» Centre of Visual Culture Béton, Moscow. (group exhibition)

2023 – «Photomontage. Reformed Truth.» Cultural Centre «Hermitage – Urals» Yekaterinburg. (group exhibition)

March-June 2019 – Exhibition «FESTINS» with author Caroline Godriot at the Bernard Magret Cultural Institute – Bordeaux – France.

September-October 2019 – Exhibition «DEMOCRATIA» with the author Caroline Godriot at the Danubiana Meulensteen Art Museum – Bratislava – Slovakia.

January 2019 – «Raft of Illusions» and «Before the Birth of Venus» exhibition Musée Mar et Marine – Bordeaux – France.

October-November 2018 – SEE + Gallery Pekin- «Little Man in a Big World – Paper Man» Beijing, China

March-October 2017 – Venice Biennale 2017 – Exhibition «REVOLUTION» + Art Performance «Wave on a Raft of Illusions» Campo Sant’Angelo Venice – Italy

April-May 2017 – Cathedral Church of Saint-André de Chartres – «The Fate of Men». With Caroline Godriot – co-author of the exhibition – France

October-December 2016 – Bordeaux Submarine Base – «The Probability of a Miracle» With Caroline Godriault – co-author of the exhibition – Bordeaux – France

March-June 2016 – Chateau de Gaasbeek – Brussels – Group exhibition: «Divine Decadence». With Jan Fabre, David Lachapelle, Joel Peter Witkin, Kees Van Dogen, Rancinan.

March-June 2016 – City Fun – Berlin – solo exhibition: «The Fate of Men» Part 1 and Part 2 – From Light to Darkness.

April-June 2016 – Montresso Foundation – Marrakech – Morocco – Exhibition «Rancinan in Morocco» – First exhibition of the Montresso Foundation Museum.

March 2016 – Accademia di Belle Arti and Accademia delle Arti del Disegno – Florence – Italy – Exhibition «The Fate of Men» – in collaboration with the writer Caroline Godriault.

September 2015 – January 2016- Palais des Beaux-Arts in Lille – France – «Joie de Vivre» exhibition – Picasso, Carpeaux, Monet, Baselitz, Avedon, Mapplethorpe, Rancinan, Murakami

August 2015 – «Le Destin des Hommes» – Galerie Tony Roquefort – La Baule – France.

June 2015 – Exhibition / event «Le Destin des Hommes» – Couvent des Cordeliers – Paris – France

April-June 2015 – «Another Day on Earth» – Monaco Oceanographic Museum – Ocean and Horizon Series – Principality of Monaco

September-December 2014 – «Ranxinan China 1983 – Beyond any limits» – Galerie Beaugeste – Shanghai – China

September-October 2014 – «Little Man in a Big World» – Sinan Mansions – Art Centre – Pierre Dumontail Gallery Shanghai – China

September-November 2014 – «Contemporary Trilogy» – Museum of Contemporary Art of the Himalayas – Shanghai – China

September-October 2014 – «Speed of Angels» – Palazzo Summa – Via GB Belluzzi 1 – Republic of San Marino

June-September 2014 – «Dumb or Not Dumb» – Salomé Detail – Collective exhibition – Oscar Niemeyer Museum – Curitiba – Brazil

June-September 2014 – «Festin de l’Art» – «The Big Dinner» – Collective exhibition – Pinot Collection – Dinard – France – curated by Jean-Jacques Eliagon

April-June 2014 – «Little Man in a Big World» – avant-garde premiere – Patinoire Royale – Brussels – Belgium

February-April 2014 – «Motopoetique» -MAC- Lyon Museum of Contemporary Art – group exhibition – curated by Paul Ardenne.

October-November 2013 – «Le Festin des Barbares» – Museum of Arts and Crafts – Paris.

March-September 2013 – «Moderns + Chaos Trilogy», Danubian Museum of Contemporary Art – Bratislava – Slovakia

September 2013 – «Printemps de Septembre» Les Abattoirs, Toulouse Museum of Contemporary Art – group exhibition.

September-October 2012 – «Wonderful World», Patinoire Royale – Brussels – Belgium

March-June 2012 – «Wonderful World, Futur Tense – cadet Ed Bartlett» – London – UK

April-May 2012 – «Contemporary Trilogy», Museo Triennale di Milano – Italy.

November-December 2011 – «Ransinan in Hong Kong», Hong Kong

October-November 2011 – «Hypotheses», Chapelle Saint-Sauveur – Issy-les-Moulineaux – France

November-December 2009 – «Metamorphoses», Museum of Modern Art – Palais de Tokyo – Paris.

October 2009 – «Metamorphoses, still lifes and conversations», Galerie Brugier-Rigail – Paris.

September 2008 – «Photographer», Palazzo Roma Museum – Italy.

June-July 2007 – «Trilogy of the Sacred Desert», Museo Triennale Bovisa in Milan.

Kings Without a Kingdom, Nathan Image Editions, 1990.

Urban Jungle, La Martinière Editions, 1999.

Rancinan Exploit, Federico Motta editions, Milan, 2004.

Trilogy of the Sacred Savage, Federico Motta Editions, Milan, 2005

Photographer, with writer Caroline Godriault, Édition Abrams, New York, 2008.

Photographer, with the writer Caroline Godriot, La Martinière, 2008.

Metamorphoses, Beses and still lifes, with Caroline Godriault, editors Biro and Cohen, 2009

Hypotheses, Paradoxe, 2011 (in collaboration with writer Caroline Godriault)

Wonderful World, Paradoxe, 2012 (in collaboration with writer Caroline Godriault)

Little Man in a Big World, Editions Paradoxe, 2014 – with writer Caroline Godriault and Francis Fukuyama.

Sauvons l’amour,, Original music by Charlélie Couture , 1986 (11 minutes 40 seconds, 35 mm). Feature film / short film.

Héritage – Voyage au Pays de l’Homme, TF1, 52 min, 1995. Documentary.

Trilogy of Modernity – Behind the Scenes, documentary, shot, based on the work of Gérard Rancinan and Caroline Godriot , 52 min. Directed with commentary by Paul Ardenne , art historian. French and English versions, December 2012. Documentary film.