Noire Idole by Ronan Juglard

Noire Idole by Ronan Juglard

Noire Idole is an immersive journey into a sophisticated world, both in terms of the choice of subject matter and form and as regards the way these are given artistic expression. The gear on the set lets the imagination and virtuosity of the craftsmen run riot. None of the objects are fake; they exude a natural perfection whose mirror image is simply reflected back to us.

It is also a sensory journey into the shadows, alongside the reclining smoker. The choice of a black background transforms reality. The outlines of the furnishings become blurred, vision becomes clouded, the present is endlessly suspended.

At the same time, it is a journey through memory, where drugs are merely a pretext for the narrative. Indochina appears within and between the lines. The author reveals his double loss: a vanished ritual and a dead dream, an unfulfilled French passion. Noire Idole is a collection of texts. A compendium brought together in the name of emotion, cultural exchange, and mutual fascination. The writing is leavened by contemporary pictures in the form of a collection of exceptional, previously unpublished photographs.

Ronan Juglard’s childhood in Africa taught him that art follows function. Juglard is a self taught photographer and his pictures are instinctive, his eye on the lookout for the telling detail. As a naval doctor, imagination became the only thing able to break through the cold metal hulls that were always too close for comfort in a submarine. Back on the surface, he was seized by a passion for collecting. It proved an incurable condition, since accumulation is a compensation and not the end product. It remains a wonderful remedy for a pessimism that could sweep everything away. Emmanuel Pierrat is a lawyer and writer. He is a former member of both the French Bar Council and the National Council of the French Bar. He has been curator of the Paris Bar Museum, secretary general of the Yves Saint-Laurent Museum, in Paris, and a member of the Purchasing Committee of the Museums of Decorative Arts. After a period spent in a voluntary service overseas project in Calcutta, he specialised in intellectual property law and also became an agent acting on behalf of writers and artists. Emmanuel Pierrat is himself a bibliophile and collector of African art, as well as the author of La Collectionnite (Le Passage, 2011), Les Nouveaux Cabinets de curiosité (Les Beaux Jours, 2011) and Collections, collectionneurs (La Martinière, 2019). Alexandre Hougron is an antique dealer and expert in Asian pieces. He is a former student at the École Normale Supérieure in Rue d’Ulm, where he studied literature, graduating with an agrégation in classical literature and later earning a PhD in cinema. He inherited his passion for Asia from his father, the writer Jean Hougron, who had a particular interest in China. In 2006, Alexandre and his mother, Victoria, opened the Galerie Beauté Chinoise, named after his latest book, at the Marché Biron in the heart of the Saint-Ouen flea market. In 2015, he published La Céramique chinoise ancienne (Éditions de l’Amateur).