artist in residence
2025
Cabaret – Intimacy and identity
From the famous Cancan — soon to be listed on the national inventory of intangible cultural heritage — to cabarets campaigning for LGBTQIA+ rights, via the contemporary drag scene, cabaret has remained, since the 19th century, a space of freedom, subversion and creativity deeply rooted in French culture. A place of spectacle, transgression and conviviality, it continues to embody a theatre of possibilities.
It is this universe that Frédéric Stucin has chosen to explore through his residency in Normandy. Rather than capturing the intensity of the show on stage, he prefers to reveal what precedes or follows the performance. The artists pose outside the frame, behind the scenes or in the interstices of everyday life, lit by flash, in a floating, almost unreal atmosphere.
He combines these portraits with photographs of shows captured in slow motion, where bodies blur in movement, as well as deserted views of auditoriums emptied of their audience. Between appearance and withdrawal, silence and brilliance, his work reveals a world that is at once vibrant and fragile, deeply human.
A French photographer born in Nice in 1977 to Slovenian parents, Frédéric Stucin lives and works in Paris. Initially a refuge, photography became an alternative language for him, capable of expressing what words cannot say. His work, which oscillates between reality and fiction, combines portraits of famous and anonymous people – notably for the press – with constructed scenes and cinematic lighting. Represented by the Clémentine de la Féronnière gallery, his photographs have been exhibited at the Nicéphore Niépce Museum (Chalon-sur-Saône) and the Villa Pérochon (Niort), among others.
