Born 1961, Philippe Ramette is a surrealist artist who lives and works in Paris, France. While looking at his images you would think that he uses technology to recreate odd scenarios that defy gravity. However, that is far from the case. He believes nothing should ever be faked. His improbable, gravity-defying poses might look like classic Photoshop, until you notice they are peppered with little incongruities. “You see a tension in my hands, my red face is far from serene as the blood rushes to it, my suit is ruffled.”
A sculptor, Ramette rose to fame in the 90s as part of the French contemporary art scene, creating strange wooden and metal instruments and objects. Photography was the logical next step, and through it he has created an odd, neo-romantic universe, using a carefully planned, rational approach to create totally irrational situations. In France, his bizarre images have been compared to the work of Buster Keaton and the world of silent cinema. For him, they are a statement about gravity, weightlessness and man’s relationship to the landscape.
Ramette, who still sees himself a sculptor rather than photographer, goes to extraordinary lengths to create his implausible set-ups, building hidden metal supports that he calls “sculpture-structures”. Metal rings tether him by the ankles as he hangs motionless from the Grimaldi Forum building in Monaco (previous page), his trousers and tie strapped down and his hair gelled flat to give the impression of being upright. Every image is the exact reproduction of one of his drawings; sketches that he considers to be film storyboards, reconstructed by his faithful team while he directs the image. “I never question whether it’s going to be complicated,” he says. The fact that his images consist of him actually standing in unconventional locations and stances is truly extraordinary.
Images via Gallery Xippas
