Jean-Paul Goude

By Penny Martin, 11:59 Wed 01 Nov 2006

Allow me to boast that Jean-Paul Goude helped me take this portrait of him (in as much as after three dismal attempts, he suggested I switched on the flash)... Over here to promote his new book So Far So Goude, clever London University of the Arts hosted a talk from the image-maker last night, with an incredibly popular book signing and rather starry dinner afterwards.

Instead of the usual powerpoint 'and then I did' presentation, Goude screened an interesting film that represented a sort of visual autobiography, the latter part of which was a documentary compilation of his most famous work (collaborations with Grace Jones and Janet Jackson, the landmark Chanel commercials including Vanessa Paradis in the birdcage or the women screaming 'Egoiste!' from balconies) that is featured on the CD enclosed in the book.

Perhaps more revealing, though, was a montage of excerpts from Hollywood musicals of the 50s, interspersed with an array of amazing clips of what could only be described as 'the black body in locomotion': film sequences of African tribes dancing à la George Roger; Harlem Renaissance dancehall; Muhammad Ali training and some fairly sexually explicit illustrative storyboarding of shoots with black models including Miss Jones herself. All of this was cut to a metronome-like snare drum soundtrack, which seemed to imply a sort of inevitable, historical progression from the early source material to Goude's definitive imagery of the 1980s and beyond.

It was whispered in advance that the college had received complaints about their presenting an image-maker who was associated with such sexually provocative representations of women, and their Orientalist perspective which his film certainly emphasised. So it was hard to know what to expect as the diminuative photographer opened himself up for questions to a packed academic audience. Though he was spared the Feminist or Post Colonial grilling that one might have expected, Goude has clearly had to argue his corner before; he deftly anticipated the questions before they came. As he described his youthful fascination with The Museum of the Colonies and the influence of his American, dancer mother, Goude won any ideologically hostile audience members over with his intelligent self-awareness, good grace and the sheer brilliance of his imagery. It was quite something to witness.