Lucien Clergue: Eros and Thanatos

Love and death (Eros and Thanatos) form the dual theme of Clergue's stirring photographs, alternating between the eroticism of a nude awash in sea spray and the disturbing pattern made by a dead dog's bones sinking into the sand. The French photographer turns life into symbol with his haunting images of nudes, landscapes, animal corpses, faces etched in stone, shadows and shapes. We see matadors proudly taunting death in the guise of a bull; children dressed as harlequins, oddly posed amid the rubble of ruined buildings; gypsies dancing and playing. Dating from the 1950s to the present, these black-and-white photos (approximately 12 in color) are beautifully reproduced, and Fulton's essay and Tournier's introduction provide perceptive analyses of Clergue's work and background. October