Bob Dylan was born on May 24: that makes him a Gemini of the first decan.
If you believe in such things, it is possible to interpret his entire journey under this double alignment of twinship.
His career is thus constantly analyzed in two stages: that of the acoustic and that of the electric - Dylan, folk hero of the beginning of the
60's
, switched to the electric guitar in 1965 at the Newport folk festival.
This adoption, official dubbing of rock instead of folk, has always been badly experienced by its first fans.
A lèse-majesté crime, a gesture so iconoclastic that it changed the history of both genres.
And upgraded Dylan to an absolute and untouchable star capable of all transgressions.
In video, Suzanne Lindon takes us to the Palace for the Celine fashion show
Sixty years later, we are still there: Dylan still understands himself in two, often opposed, times.
For example, in the 1970s, his songs took a Christian turn, displaying themes contrary to the cynical nihilism of his beginnings.
Fans are flabbergasted, rock reconnects with the Christian blues of the beginnings of the century… No one else could have been transformed like this.
Bob Dylan, in the series
Portrait of a Musician
by Hedi Slimane.
(Malibu, December 2022.) Hedi Slimane
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A Nobel singer
We could give examples of the dual Dylan, right down to the way he manages his career: records on the one hand, tours on the other - Dylan is the only artist to say he is on permanent tour: his Never Ending Tour is also important than his records, in the bond he creates with the fans, with the possibility of seeing him, hearing him, being in front of him.
Author of discs, Dylan is also the author of a literary work, not very voluminous, but essential.
We count the experimental novel
Tarentula
in the 1970s and
Chronicles
in the 2000s. All of his writing, books and song texts, earned him the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature.
A Nobel singer: a consecration so unusual that it underlines, here again, the duality of the character.
The duality, the twinness manifest themselves again: through the detail of the guitar, Dylan appears in its absolute complexity.
The area where he excelled little remains cinema, where his experimental film,
Reynaldo & Clara
, 1978, was a failure such as has not been seen for ages (if you have a copy or a link, please let me know). 'send to the editor, poste restante).
That said, Todd Haynes reversed the curse of cinema by making Dylan the character of a genius film,
I'm Not There
(what a genius title, mise en abyme so telling for Dylan).
The singer is embodied there by several actors including a woman, Cate Blanchett, as if there were really several of them, referring to the phrase of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari in their text Rhizome: "As each of us was several, that made a
lot
of world".
The stars at the Celine Fall/Winter 2023 show in Los Angeles
In images, in pictures
See the slideshow09 photos
See the slideshow09 photos
The mythology of rock in pictures
There are thus a lot of people in Bob Dylan, and it is the first impression that grabs your mind when you look at the images of him which are displayed in early March 2023 in Paris: taken by Hedi Slimane for Celine, they are are part of the long-term work of the artistic director, photographing for years several musicians and artists, from different eras and generations.
Photographing Dylan is a logical continuation of portraits by Lou Reed or Jean-Luc Godard, taken by Hedi Slimane in recent years.
Yet something is different: two images of Dylan are visible.
One shows him with an acoustic guitar, the other with an electric one.
The duality, the twinness manifest themselves again: through the detail of the guitar, Dylan appears in his absolute complexity,
For someone who hasn't been photographed since 2012, this comeback is not only a nice surprise, it's also an unexpected moment of grace in the ongoing tale of rock mythology.
Dylan, split, reveals an absolute modernity, which can be understood in the details, in the interstices opened between the two images.
What Hedi Slimane captured so finely from him is more or less that: genius in two stages, as we say of a waltz.
On video, at the Palace, Hedi Slimane woke up the Parisian night
