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The Illusion of Reality: Jean-Paul Goude’s So Far, So Goude is now available from David Krut Bookstores.

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“As an artisan,” says Jean-Paul Goude, “I’ve come to realise that work must reflect, honestly and unsentimentally, my own personal values, obsessions, emotions, even neuroses – a documented record of real life’s experiences, romantic or the opposite; all human encounters, all commercial endeavours, personal conflicts, all of it, to be examined and revealed under an unforgiving microscope – beauty marks and all… an artist’s work is the reflection of his soul.”

And so it is with So Far, So Goude: representing more than thirty years of life and work blended together into a personal mythology of hard glamour and idiosyncratic theatricality. Through drawing, poster design, photography, cinema, video and event design, Jean-Paul Goude has made an impression, in every sense, on our imagination. So Far, So Goude is an artist’s autobiography told with charming honesty and humour through the work he has created in various disciplines.

The essays and vignettes that make up this book are selected and arranged by Goude and Patrick Mauriès into chronological order from his early years in the slums of Paris; his teenage attempts at seduction through drawing; his stint as art director of the legendary Esquire magazine; his advertising campaigns for Chanel, Perrier, Kodak, Vuitton, and others; his music videos for a then-emerging MTV; his work with Grace Jones; his pioneering of techniques of photo manipulation (“What I’m interested in,” he claims, “is the illusion of reality, in creating a credible illusion.”); the Bicentennial celebration parade in Paris; and his continuing career in fashion and art. Goude’s talent is further distinguished by his appreciation of and love for a line of beautiful women that has ranged from Toukie Smith, Grace Jones and Farida to his Korean-American wife Karen (“The Queen of Seoul”), all featuring in his distinctive work. Goude is a unique artist and has triumphantly captured, time after time, the spirit of his age.

Illustrated with over 350 images and containing a complementary DVD.

Hardcover

352 pages

290 x 240 mm

Full colour

ISBN 978 0500512401

Keywords: Assouline, Design, Fashion, Goude, monograph