In 2007, while Kayne West was releasing Graduation to Number 1 charts and Takashi Murakami opened a pupil dilating MOCA Los Angeles retrospective, French photographer Denis Darzacq was winning 1st prize for Arts & Entertainment at the World Press Photo 2007 Awards. It was Darzacq's gravity defying series, La Chute that took home the prize. Recently, I discovered the series for the first time and was so moved by the images, I felt it deserved another viewing as, almost ten years later, the work is as relevant as ever.
According to Darzacq and his body of work description: La Chute makes a crystal clear connection between photojournalism and his search for artistic expression. Inspired by a press report on hip-hop dancers, the photo series captures young dancers during leaps and jumps, with no recourse to any digital manipulation. Their bodies impose their energy, their lightness and their inventiveness on the dense geometry of the city space they invade. Darzacq borrows street culture's very forms of expression and uses them as a tool for freedom.
La Chute #4 courtesy of De Soto Gallery
La Chute #10 courtesy of De Soto Gallery
La Chute #3 courtesy of De Soto Gallery
La Chute #15 courtesy of De Soto Gallery
La Chute #17 courtesy of De Soto Gallery
La Chute #17 courtesy of De Soto Gallery
La Chute #24 courtesy of De Soto Gallery
La Chute #11 courtesy of De Soto Gallery
La Chute #2 courtesy of De Soto Gallery
La Chute #1 courtesy of De Soto Gallery
All images available by contacting De Soto Gallery.