A French photographer offers an unexpected view of the United States through its many strip clubs

Cnn
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Some people travel around the world looking for adventure, while others are looking for natural wonders, cultural monuments or culinary experiences. But French photographer François Prost was looking for something quite different during his recent road trip through America: Strip-tease clubs.

From Miami to Los Angeles, Prost’s latest book “Men’s Club“Founded on the United States via nearly 150 strip clubs with names such as pleasures, temptations and cookies and cookies.

During five weeks in 2019, he traveled more than 6,000 miles, with the Resulting photos Capture everything, pastel shades of the Club of Florida Pink Pussycat to the places hiding well in the more religious states of the country.

“I would divide these places into two types: one is very integrated into the public landscape, and one is a little more hidden and doubtful,” said Prost, addressing CNN during a video call and an email.

The first type, he added, could be found in “very American” contexts, such as “around amusement and fast food parks and shopping centers”. The latter places, however, sometimes seemed indistinguishable from any store in a shopping center. Prost said that he had found many establishments of this type along the Bible Belt, a socially conservative region in the south of the country. He was particularly eager to explore the area because of the apparent contrast between the prevalence of striptease clubs and what he describes in his book as “extreme conservatism and puritanism”.

Prost insisted that he had little interested in the interiors or services of striptease clubs, which he always visited during the day. Instead, he hoped to know more about American culture by creating objective documentary photographs of establishments seated at the intersection of sex, gender and commerce. Documenting the evolution of attitudes towards sex through the objective of architecture, he added that the series was mainly of a landscape photography project.

“The prism of this theme of the facades of the strip club has become a way of studying and trying to understand the country,” he wrote in “Gentlemen’s Club”, whose photographs will appear in an exhibition in Tokyo in March.

“(” Gentlemen’s club “is) an objective panorama of dominant opinions and gender and the sexualization of the female image.”

The genesis of the prost project dates back to its 2018 series, “”After the party“, Which focused on the flamboyant facades of French nightclubs. He said that people have frequently commented that the exteriors of buildings seemed to have been torn straight from American cities, triggering the idea that it should visit the United States and extend the project.

While he met his trip meticulously, he was struck not only by the volume of strip clubs in America, but that – unlike Europe – they often asked to be seen. Vive pink walls, gigantic naked silhouettes and even candy striped windows have made no secrets on the type of entertainment provided inside.

“A good example would be Las Vegas, where the strip clubs are everywhere and their panels flash as much as a fast food (restaurant) or a casino panel,” said Prost.

Miami clubs were often painted in lively, Wes Anderson-Esque Flow. Other photos show sites brilliantly contrasting with their sparse desert environment.

If the establishments were open during the day, Prost would enter and asked permission to take photos in order to “not look suspicious … and explain what my intentions were,” he said. The interiors were rarely up to the attractive promises plastered through the panels outside, but the photographer encountered a multitude of characters during his five -week trip, of bouncers indifferent to the managers delighted with the project.

“Most of the time, people were going well-99% of them would say yes to a photo of the facade,” he said, adding that they would generally not care about his presence, as long as he did not take photos of customers or dancers.

“Some would think it was a bit strange, some would be really excited about it and give me their business card to send me the photo when it was done,” he said.

Prost said that his greatest surprise, however, was to know how “normalized” striptease clubs seemed to be in daily life. As he reflects in his book, “the relationship that the Americans seem to have with the strip clubs is very different from what you see in Europe. Going to a strip club seems to be much more normalized … You go as a couple, or among friends at night to have fun. ”

It has been struck, for example, by the fact that so many LAS VEGAS striptease clubs have doubled as restaurants – with numerous HAPPY HOUR, Buffets and special discounts for truck drivers or construction workers.

“I noticed a few striptease clubs that would advertise as a striptease and steakhouse club, so that you can eat a big piece of meat (while looking at) stripper. It is also something that seems very American,” he said, adding: “I heard some people I met in Portland, there are even strip clubs ( offer) vegan food. ”

The facades are strewn with jokes like “my sex life is like the Sahara, 2 palms, no dates” and names based on word games like Booby Trap and Bottoms Up. Prost’s documentary approach increases the surrealist comedy of signs. But this is also coupled with a neutral objective through which viewers can decide on the objectification of women.

By refining the face bodies without face of female silhouettes and the signs par excellence of “girls of girls”, “Gentleman’s Club” explores the commodification of women who, in reality, completely absent in the works of Prost (an observation reflected in the title of the book, which is a sentence that develops several times on its photographs). The strip clubs that he visited the market as things to consume, many names on the theme of food to an advertising reading “1,000 beautiful girls and three ugly”.

For his next project, Prost plans to visit Japan to document the LOVE hotels in the country, which occupy a role similar to the strip clubs in certain parts of the United States: secrets open in a conservative company. But the photographer believes that the American establishments he visited say something unique about the country – something that is less a matter of sexuality and more about the American dream.

What his project has shown him, that is to say, he said: “As long as you succeed in terms of business, (that does not matter) if your activity deals with sex.”

“Gentlemen’s Club” will be exhibited in Agnes B. Galerie Boutique in Tokyo, Japan, between March 17 and April 15, 2023. The bookPosted by Fisheye Editions, is available now.