Jacques Bosser Photographs Sue Tilley in Kabuki-Inspired Series

French photographer Jacques Bosser has published a book titled "BTK" featuring portraits of Sue Tilley, the model and muse of Lucian Freud, dressed in kabuki-inspired makeup and costumes. The book includes texts by Serge Bramly and Tilley herself. Tilley, also known as the biographer of Leigh Bowery, recounts her exhausting posing sessions in Paris, including taxi rides and accommodation struggles, providing a candid counterpoint to Bosser's highly sophisticated images. Bosser describes Tilley as a "woman-woman who scares you," a phallic mother figure, since kabuki female roles are traditionally played by men. Tilley notes that kabuki was invented in the early 17th century by a court lady and was performed by prostitutes until the government banned women from the stage. The photographs evoke the carnival of Venice rather than Dunkirk, with silks, fans, and heavy makeup creating an anti-natural aesthetic. The work is seen as a new treatise on savoir-vivre for generations that prefer disguise to authentic adulthood. Tilley was in her forties at the time, too young for inner truth but too experienced for punk. The book was published by Éditions arearevue(s) and reviewed by Hugo Lacroix in artpress.