Rodolf Hervé

FULGURANCE

Dazzling. That’s the first word that comes to mind when one thinks of Rodolf Hervé (1957-2000). Dazzling due to the relative brevity of his existence. And especially dazzling in regard to his work. Back at a time—mid-1980s to mid-1990s—when digital photography didn’t yet exist, it wasn’t by trivial chance that Rodolf Hervé chose the Polaroïd. Out of urgency. Urgency to appropriate and transform his space. Polaroïd on which he could act as a painter on his canvas. For Rodolf Hervé was just as much a painter, musician, or video-maker as a photographer. There’s also another reason that justifies his use or the Polaroïd, as he explained in a text that appeared in Hungary in 1991: “Being the only son of Lucien Hervé, I followed in his wake, in collaboration with him, through him… And although through several of my works I had already liberated myself from the statue of the Commendatore it’s worth mentioning to what degree the Polaroïd helped me break with the paternal style (to the point of damning house spirit).” In Rodolf Hervé the individual and the work are closely tied. Infinite violence and infinite tenderness. A body of work amazingly built, a body of work amazingly broken. Unique work that couldn’t be related to any other. All due to his culture, at the same time man of Enlightenment and notable figure in the underground, fascinated by Surrealism and by Constructivism. If he scratches and deforms reality, it’s because reality wounds him and drives him to deform himself. In an interview in the Hungarian magazine “Kurir” in 1991, Rodolf Hervé made very clear his vision of photography: “I don’t want to tell anything with my photographs, I fight against the anecdotal. I just try to make them successes. They perhaps aren’t beautiful, but what’s beautiful isn’t necessarily good. I try to take photographs that are true”. And in that same interview he concluded in answer to a question about depression: “I like being sad, I like being happy. I am not categorically sad, although I like depression, for it’s like a wave, after the depths comes the crest.” When people complimented Schubert for “Death and the Maiden”, he would answer back: “No matter how extended my musical knowledge, I couldn’t have written that piece because I’ve expressed my sadness therein… in my case I learned early on that infinity, eternity don’t exist. Men disappear for different reasons, because they die or because they go away. While the world gets bigger, it doesn’t cease to get smaller. Eternity is what I’m now living, it is just there where I am at this moment… “ The “Polas” by Rodolf Hervé — he said Pola — reverberate like gunshot in the middle of a celebration.

Olivier Beer