With a majestic preface by Wim Wenders, Ronan Guillou’s first work arrives under the highest auspices. The fruit of a years-long trek across 17 American states (like the photographer in Wenders’ Alice in the City), Angel depicts an America in suspense.

Although the urban landscapes are familiar, Guillou shows them to us from another angle, an interstice of the visible, a breach in the myth of America.

What is America? Where is she today?

Is she this overburdened old woman pushing an empty wheelchair? This wooden carrousel horse painted red, white and blue, tied to a barbed-wire fence? This retiree taking in the sun on the sidewalk, quarters resting on his eyelids? Or is she this young man on the corner, caught by the camera in mid-step?

Portraits of willing subjects appear next to scenes of deserted urban landscapes, where silence and light reign. Sometimes a silhouette— a sudden, fleeting presence—emerges from the shadow.

“Cherchez l’Ange” could be the guiding principle of this book that delights with its gentleness, its mystery and its silence.

Roaming the American highways, Ronan went through the looking glass to find his America. And he shows that, however imperceptible, the myth remains.

“In ten years, American will be back on its feet,” predicts Guillou.

The angels are watching over us...

Laurence Ebs

Book signing
Thursday, November 3, 6-9pm
NEXTLEVEL GALERIE
8, Rue Charlot
Paris 3

Ronan Guillou, Angel
Preface by Wim Wenders
To be published in november
Trans Photographic Press, Paris
112 pages, 73 photographs
21.5 x 25 cm