English text
Marta Berzkalna, 2005Who said we were doing this
chronologically?
Clearly we’re not. Thanks for letting
me know! To answer your question,
let’s get things straight: when I started
out as a photographer, it was a com-
pletely different profession. When
I came back from London, a friend
got me into the advertising and PR
company Publicis as an intern, at a
time when interns were paid because
it wasn’t considered the done thing
to exploit adolescents. They got me
to design and prepare the layouts for
printed adverts, and it was there that
I first saw photographers’ portfolios.
I didn’t have any experience, but at
least I could speak English. I still
played guitar and I used to hang out
with rock groups, a number of whom- [Alain] Bashung, Telephone, the
whole French rock scene – were just
starting to get contracts with record
companies. So I said to them, “Let
me do your album covers because no
one else is doing it in France.”
Whereas in England it was estab-
lished practice. So I started to look
exhausted – because while all of that
is character building it also takes its
toll physically – my childhood friends
didn’t recognize me, and nor did I.What did your parents do?
My mother was a cleaner and my fa-
ther – who moved with her to France
during the reconstruction after World
War I – was a mason and later a ste-
vedore. In spite of myself, I went fur-
ther than my father very quickly: at 20
I played guitar, spoke English, wore
an earring, lived in London... The
poor guy didn’t know what to think,
and was very worried about me.I remember being astonished by
an ad you directed for the launch
of the Jean Paul Gaultier perfume
in 1995... What gave you the idea
of using morphing, a type of tech-
nology which was very rarely
employed at that time?
Wait a minute, we’ve jumped miles
and miles ahead here, I was still talk-
ing about when I got back to France
from London...And what was your job in these
nightclubs? Bouncer?
I had the violence but not the physical
bulk for a doorman, so I ended up in
the cloakroom of a club run by a
group of French people called La
Poubelle. Then I worked as a barman
and afterwards ended up as the DJ.
The term “DJ” didn’t exist at the time,
I was known as the “disquaire.”
What’s more we shouldn’t forget that
it was the French who invented the
disco; the English swore only by their
pubs and live music. Anyway, in
London I learned a new language,
and I learned how to use it – because
in the 93 things were pretty miserable
back then...How did sexuality express itself in
the pre-AIDS 70s?
I was 20, horny as hell, and hadn’t
been taught about any of that during
my childhood. So you can imagine. A
lot of wanking to start with, then a few
English girlfriends, then sex, the fe-
male body, trying out drugs, music...
When I finally returned to Aubervilliers,- the world I lived in was grey, sepia
and black. There were no representa-
tions of the human body, no nudity,
everybody was covered up. So when
my mother took me to church, it was
the equivalent of taking me to see an
exhibition of work by Jeff Koons – the
colour, the smells, the incense, the
statues, the sensuality, the ecstasy,
the be aut y...
...the priests on the lookout for
young flesh...
I never had any problems where that
was concerned, thank god. For me
the church was a realm of fantasy:
there were bodies, curves, muscles,
blood, etc. and it was the first time
I was confronted with such sensuality.
Icons I discovered later – the album
covers of Jimi Hendrix or Elvis Presley
- produced exactly the same effect
on me. Anyway, at the age of 20 I left
Aubervilliers on a pilgrimage to the
Isle of Wight to hear Hendrix in con-
cert. And I never came back – I stayed
in London where I learned English
working in nightclubs.
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