Olivier Degorce
Olivier Degorce is a French documentary photographer whose work has, for several decades, explored music scenes, alternative cultures, and the communities that bring them to life. Beginning in the 1990s, he has photographed Parisian nightlife and the emergence of rave culture, getting up close and personal with those who were experimenting with new forms of celebration, freedom, and social interaction. His images capture an era when the boundaries between music, styles, and social circles seemed to dissolve.
In the text accompanying this series, Xanaé Bové reflects on the decade of raves and what it meant for an entire generation:
“1991–1999: the decade of raves coincided with my second round on earth, my second decade. By a happy coincidence, the age of my first defining experiences coincided with the discovery of a new sound, a new way of going out, partying, and doing drugs—or not.
I love this scene because it’s multifaceted, as yet unnamed because it’s still in its infancy, free because it’s not yet defined, unclassified because it defies labels through the mix it promises—and, alas, the one it subsequently promotes. In the ’90s, it was a space of endless possibilities, of every conceivable way of being. We were too young to be set in our ways, too inexperienced to be jaded, too enthusiastic not to want to try everything.
More than the music, the “party,” or the stimulants, it was the crossover—the fusion—that reigned supreme and swept everything away with regal flair. I didn’t understand right away what was happening. I came from rock and new wave, but I caught the second wave in the mid-1990s, and it took me far. I don’t remember everything, except that it had a new taste of freedom, of a shared bubble, and of collective autism.
A decade that, for many of us, shaped us.
To paraphrase our friend Shakespeare: we are of the same stuff as our raves.
Olivier Degorce’s photographs offer a perfect and gentle immersion into this enchanted interlude, still a work in progress; especially the wide-angle shots, where anonymity and the mixing of people and genres take center stage.”
— Xanaé Bové, 2018
