APRIL 2014 Vogue Hommes International Article

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CONTENTS
11
VOGUE
T5 INTERNATIONAL
TRE N DS
IO2 VOAUEHOM
By
MAN lA The editorial
oLlvlER LALANNE ona LOIC pRIGENT
I2B
team,s pick
FLYING
ofthe best.
By
INNER JoURNEY
Couldmeditationbethebestwaytogetbackcontroloflives?
By FREDERT.UE
IJ{
HIGH
126
Five fragrances ready for takeoff.
vERLEy
ooN'T Mlss
By
THEODORA ASPART
ONE MAN'S STYLE I?O
Astopoverinrorritoi;:,"*nliff,lltfll:
GILDAS STEWART photosrophs YASUYUKT TAKAGT
Music, books, exhibitions ...: a look at the season's highlights.
By OLIVIER LALANNE, DIDIER PERON ond OLtVtER GRANOUX
MAGAZI N E
rqo Top oFche world
A meeting with Vasily Klyukin, the Russian magnate heading for the stars.
By DIDIER PERON
4l
Staccato inspiradon
Three high-profi1e musicians who have chosen to live abroad.
By
JULIEN GESTER
48 Asian amnidcs
Four classic works oftravel literature.
By
GILDAS STEWART Photosrophs FRANqOIS HALARD
d6
SaintLaurcnc:
thc curing
gc.
An exclusive encounter with Bertrand Bonello, the director of this year's most awaited film.
lnterYiew by
DIDIER PEnON
2r2 Paradise losc
The flip side ofthe picture postcard Kenyan landscape is environmental turmoil.
By JERRY STAFFORD Photogrophs GLEN LUCHFORD
A portrait ofphotographer David Gulden,
a true nature lover and worthy successor to peter Beard.
By JERRY STAFFORD photosrophs DAVID GULDEN
256 I is anorhcr
An interview withJudith Benhamou-Huet, on the occasion of two landmark erhibitions devoted
to the unwittingly scandalous artist Robert Mapplethorpe.
By DIDIER pEnON qnd ARTHUR DREYFUS photogr-ophs ROBERT MAPPLETHORPE
ADDREssEs
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ALL FoR
CONTENTS
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exce p t th ad f) ovid Guldffie
actually prcf,ei's che uairirng gamc.
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Dilidinq his Lirn**fetuccn horncs
in N-mt; I oVk an ci iz erryo,
this astoundirrg pho{ogr,s"t$ser,
is a cineicss g ii Lltvler
in scarch of rpiWffi*k .
in the heart ofthe Nairobi suburb of Karen, named
whose farm, famously celebrated in her novel, Out of Africa, was built on the same
fertile land, at the end of a lush, steaming trail set between
thick flowering bushes filled with the shrill call ofbirds and
insects, a converted garage offers studio space and
Gulden's father was a friend ofthe celebrated photographer.
an oasis ofcalm and concentration to the American
photographer David Gulden. His first collection of artist and adventurer Peter Beard, one ofwhose unmistakextraordinary black-and-white studies ofKenyan able blood-smeared photographic collages covers a wall of
wildlife, Tbe Centre Cannot Hold,was published last the Karen studio. He had introduced his son to Beard just
year to great acclaim.
before a second trip to Kenya three years later. "We had
Gulden first travelled to Kenya from NewYork driven out to Montauk on the eastern tip of Long Islandwith his father when he was fifteen. He did not in the dead of winter, to have lunch with a man who turned
take a camera,with him on that first trip, but the out to be the most interesting man I had ever met." Gulden
experience nonetheless changed the course ofhis travelled then to Kenya to stay at Beard's makeshift home.
life forever. Wrapped now in a traditional Swahili a tented encampment called Hog Ranch, which adjoined
kikoi, dark hair dishevelled, skin weather beaten, the Blixen farm, not far from his present studio in Karen.
his eyes flicker in the halflight ofhis studio as he There he showed up "unannounced and didn't leave for
remembers. "The most powerful moment of the eight years. I was an appalling house guest! It was a rustictrip was getting up from dinner in a safari tent, decadent, liberating place. Giraffe showed up every night
walking a short distance to the edge ofa clearing at sunset and we fed them by hand."
His own interest in photography developed slowly and.
and watching a pride of lions amble past in the
torch light. It was the most incredible experience as he explains, he only took it up in earnest after several
more trips to Africa. "It started with snapshots; slowl1.
of my life."
slowly it became something more. It took a 1ot more time
to learn about animals and how to approach them and then
how to take a photo."
By JERRY STAFFORD
Photosrophs DAVID GULDEN
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after the writer Karen Blixen,
GULDEN
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Gulden's first book was compiled from work he shot predominantly in Kenya over a period of nine years. In it he
has created his own visual language, at once scientific in its
approach but also deeply personal, shooting in a black and
white, whose timeless quality he feels invites the viewer ro
look more closely, to spend more time. "Shape and form
are of more interest to me than colour, which feels more
distracting and ephemeral. I think of the animals as ,rcady_
mades' i laMarcel Duchamp, they are the works ofart and I
just present them. My thought process is more in line with a
naturalist or a conservationist but art interests me deeply.,,
Gulden has worked alongside wildlife experts like close
friend and raptor conservarionist, Simon Thomsett, in his
search for the most effective way to photograph particular
species. To achieve the extraordinary studies ofAfrican
crowned eagles in his book was particularly challenging as
David Gulden
(photog ro phed
he had to design and position his own camera mounts prehere by Glen Luchford)
cariously in trees many hundreds offeet above the ground,
Jives on the
hoisting it up and down with minimal disturbance to the
outskirts of Noirobi,
ideolly situoted
birds. "Once the camera is in place, patience and concentrafor coming foce
tion take precedence and I wait near the bottom ofthe tree
to foce with
richly diverse wildlife,
with a wireless remote control. The eagles generally enter
just o few hours'
the nest once a day and I often have a split second to react."
drive owoy.
As one might imagine, such rich reward comes at a price
and Gulden is the first to admit to experiencing several close
shaves with his more unpredictable subjects. "To
get to my camera traps that captured the highly world's most diverse wildlife and habitat. However it is a
endangered Mountain Bongo ( a type of forest an- delicate ecosystem that is under constant and continued
telope),Ihadtowalkthroughanareaofverylow- threat, and Gulden's photographic work is naturally unvisibilitybamboo,whichlnicknamed'TheBuffalo derscored by a deep
of his subject,s fragility.
Maze'. Bufhlo can be merciless! An elephant once The title of his book "*rrerr.ri
of course alludes ao ih. v.B. y.ra.
tried to flip my car and a black rhino smashed
poem, "The Second Coming" (r9r9), whose apocalyptic
speed into my Land Cruiser then popped its horn message described the atmoipheie-of post-V/\[r Europe
full
throughtherooflikeascene fromTheFlintstonesl" ("Things fall apart, the centie ."rr.roi hold,,) and is an
Although Gulden lives on the outskirts of equally pertinent allegory to the present state of wildlife
Nairobi, a city of over four million people, he has and its conservation across Africa.
crowned eagles literally in his Karen garden and
As Gulden ominously concludes, "The continent has
ifhe drives in any given direction, within a few roughly one billion people right now and in less than 5o
hours he can be in close proximity to some of the years there will be two billion. Even if the population rate
went to zero growth today the hopes, needs and desires
the populace will eventually strip the l61d f 31s." vn
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