LE PETIT HOTEL, 1996
Le Petit Hotel is a quiet reverie, a collection of fleeting moments where strangers and spaces intertwine in a dance of light and shadow. It is a place that exists outside of time, where whispers linger in empty hallways, and the echo of footsteps dissolves into the soft glow of the morning. Through delicate portraits and contemplative landscapes, this series becomes a dialogue between presence and absence, between solitude and connection. Each image holds a story—unspoken, yet deeply felt—inviting the viewer to wander through its timeless embrace. A hotel is never just a building. It is a passage between lives, a stage for fleeting moments, for arrivals and departures. In this series I document the silent intimacy of the transitory inhabitants of a hotel: the brief exchanges, the solitude, the glances that say more than words.
«A woman stares at me. A cigarette. Her face is tinged with red desire. A road leading to the beach. Everything is blue above me. Time is totally superfluous. I smoke and look at the palm trees. Vanessa undresses in front of me. The incessant monologue of the sea, in the middle of a landscape tattooed with ferns and acacia trees. Memories of the trip. Everyone awaits the arrival of the corpse. Christmas lights in all the streets. Both sides, loved and lost. Thirty seconds of silence. The sensual scent of quinces and Hannah’s lips. I watched her every day for hours from the fifth floor. A statue. And Frederika’s eyes again. A garden with yellow flowers. Eleven o’clock. The coffee pot breathes slowly. The intimacy of a telephone conversation and a very soft voice. It is eight o’clock. Erika picks up her suitcase and turns off the light. Hotels with forgotten names. Tall buildings. The velvety voice of the singer. And her red lips tasting the cherry of a glass of whiskey. I try to sleep, while we look at each other. The sticky murkiness of the night lengthens. Fan blades spin stirring thoughts. A long narrow street and a tree at the end. A quarter to two. The labyrinth of lovers. A sweet kiss in a silent dawn of frost. Breath marks the desire of every second. A bouquet of white roses. The hectic murmur of silver planes at the airport. It’s raining and while waiting for dinner I think it will be the last kiss. The last glass of wine. The intensity of Satie flooding a room overlooking the sea. Claudette. Fragile and beautiful, between the naked sheets. One of the broken photographs, which is not mine, lipstick kisses and an unmailed typed letter. Another cup of coffee. The slow step towards nothingness. A sad look of pleasure, long and continuous. The beautiful and the sublime, the great and terrible, the rush and the excitement, the fear and the death, the faith and erotic, the obsessive, the melancholy and lust, the mystery, the loneliness and decadence, the soul and madness, the order and perfectionism, the darkness, the passion, the drunken anxiety of living. I combine my work and my pleasure and so begins «Le Petit Hotel»».