Backroom
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Dates2010 - 2012
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Author
- Topics Documentary
- Locations Paris, Toulouse
Vincent Couderc started his artistic practice by drawing. He went to a high-school, specialised in art. He turned to photography before integrating the ETPA (photography school) in Toulouse As a curious observer, he shares bits and pieces of his experiences and interrogations through his photographs
Backroom, also known as dark room, is a partially or completely darkened place which can be found in some gay bars, nightclubs, saunas or even sex shops. Its idea is to provide their customers with a possibility of unfettered, free sex, often with unknown people. Backroom may be as simple as a small room enough for two or three persons, or may comprise a large portion of the bar area, with mazes, glory holes, or steel bars resembling prison cells.
This maze priori cramped and dark can it lead to pleasure? What just one look in those places yet the antithesis of pleasure traditionally defined ?
But perhaps it is then necessary to go beyond the sordid vision of these places to catch a glimpse of the true essence of their existence... The backroom would then be the scene of many paradoxes that make them fundamentally enigmatic. Sex meets dark and gloomy, can cause forgetfulness and pleasure, but whatever their purpose, whatever the intentions of those who pass through their doors, these places are accompanied by a profound freedom. And vision, practice and the definition of sexuality it should not be a perfect reflection of this freedom ?
This work intends only to note a rarely mentioned reality.