Rebels

Philippe Chancel
Rebels

Photographs: Philippe Chancel

Publisher: The Jokers Publishing

136 pages

Year: 2022

Comments: Softcover, 24,5 x 34 cm. Black and white portraits capturing the 1980s in Paris.

In the early 1980s, France was going through a turbulent period, with the downward spiral of unemployment, the rise of the National Front and the intensification of violence against immigrants. It is in this context that Philippe Chancel paints the portrait of a youth of France that is mixed, dynamic and daring. Powerful shots that illustrate the dream of another France of the 80s, opposed to the pitiful spectacle that the beginnings of an odious electoral campaign gave us to see.

In Paris, "the quadrilateral Nation, République, Grands boulevards, Gare de l'Est, marks their territory. Like them, I am just 20 years old. Blacks, Whites, Beurs, pretty faces and broken faces face each other. The story is one of trouble, with a background of sex, drugs, Rockab' and glamour; where we meet the Stray Cats until late at the "Grand Boulevards" parties in Albert (...) It is this raw energy that I tried to capture with my camera, charged with a Kodak Tri-X boosted by my flash. Even if sometimes I acted with cunning and surprise, I always expressed truth and sincerity through my pictures... "
Philippe Chancel