A year ago when I was a judge at the Hyeres Photo Festival, one of my fellow jurors was Simon Foxton – the Fashion Director of the magazine Fantastic Man. This was not a magazine I was familiar with, although I particularly liked the name as it sounded like something you would make up as a joke, but when I finally saw Fantastic Man for the first time, I realized it was actually a very good magazine – accessible, original, creative, fun.
I bought the current Spring/Summer issue because it featured a long interview with my friend and colleague, The Sartorialist. But the feature I liked best was a fashion story on wearing men’s pyjamas outside. I’ve always liked the idea and been impressed with Julian Schnabel’s predeliction for P.J.s (as opposed to Hugh Hefner’s). I think the basic rule is that P.J.s should look preppy and rumpled, not shiny and boudoiry! Anyway, the photographs by Daniel Riera, and the styling by Jodie Barnes are natural and unaffected and present a completely convincing case for how to mix comfort and style this summer!
Please feel free to send in your pictures of outdoor P.J. dressing.
It’s been a good month for Jersey boys. On Tuesday, the U.S. Postal Service released a new stamp featuring Frank Sinatra, one of the state’s favorite sons. The week before, Old Blue Eyes and Bruce Springsteen were among the first group inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame.
Sadly it was not televised, but these days there’s always someone with a camera, so thanks to “Backstreets208” we see (or perhaps more accurately we hear) Bruce not only introducing Frank’s award, but then receiving his own (from Danny De Vito).
Photograph by Richard Avedon. Cover subject Steve McQueen. Design by Ruth Ansel. Bazaar 1962.
Once upon a time, covers were selected because of their graphic boldness and visual panache. Now they are chosen based on market research that tests the appeal of various stars and cover lines. Is today’s method really more effective or does all this testing just make up for a lack of imagination?
Take this 1962 Bazaar cover featuring Steve McQueen. You might get George Clooney today but you would never get the arm, which to me is what really makes the cover.
Another day, another controversy involving Annie Leibovitz although she seems above reproach to me on this one. This time it’s the Dove “Campaign for Real Beauty” ads. To sum up, the women’s cosmetics company Dove has been running an ongoing multi-million dollar ad campaign decrying the unrealistic depiction of women being perpet- uated by the beauty, fashion, and media industries and especially (as in the video above) the rampant use of photoshop. The campaign has garnered prizes and been rightly lauded as a brilliant, empowering, and necessary corrective.
Then last week, in a fascinating 6000 word profile of industry leading retoucher Pascal Dangin in The New Yorker by Lauren Collins, was this passage:
"I mentioned the Dove ad campaign that proudly featured lumpier-than-usual 'real women' in their undergarments," Ms. Collins wrote. "It turned out that it was a Dangin job. 'Do you know how much retouching was on that?' he asked. 'But it was great to do, a challenge, to keep everyone's skin and faces showing the mileage but not looking unattractive.'"
Shortly after the piece hit the newsstands, the beauty cream hit the fan (so to speak). With denials, counter-denials, etc.. We have just begun to hear the beginning of this debate.
The New Yorker is standing by its story -- with one small correction. The publication acknowledged that one of the 6,308 words in the piece was inaccurate -- the word "undergarments." So while the story suggested that a Dove ad showing real women in "undergarments" was retouched by Mr. Dangin, the women in the ads he retouched were nude. These were the photographs shot by Annie Leibovitz, and as you can see from the images below, the Leibovitz images were pretty gutsy pictures. And all credit is due to Dangin for keeping the integrity of Leibovitz’s photographs.
Annie Leibovitz's photographs for Dove
An earlier campaign with photos of a more glamorous group of “real” women in underwear received a lot more publicity, but this was shot by the British photographer Rankin and I think people are getting the two campaigns confused. In any case, I am 100% sure both campaigns were retouched. It is simply inconceivable that any major ad campaign would appear today without some kind of digital help. The novelty in Rankin's photograph was more in the women's weight.
Rankin's photograph for Dove.
In a joint statement provided by Unilever, Annie Leibovitz, and Pascal Dangin all deny "substantially" altering images. Dove's "real beauties" were not airbrushed says the statement but their photos were treated to eliminate dust from the film and provide "color correction".
So what does this all mean? If anyone were ever to doubt that we are living in a digital age, this should be the final proof that this is not a conspiracy but a reality. Note the word “substantially” in the statement above. A photograph can never be assumed to represent reality, but nor has it ever – from the 19th century collages of Henry Peach Robinson to the artfully retouched glamour shots of the Hollywood stars of the 1930s.
Any photograph used in a magazine, a billboard, an album cover, whatever – can only be presumed to be a photo-based illustration. The issue, which Dove's well-intentioned campaign addressed, is the effect these illustrations have on the psyche, self-esteem, and well-being of women (in particular) not to mention the unrealistic view men might have of women. It brings to mind the shock the eminent Victorian art critic John Ruskin was said to have experienced upon discovering his wife’s pubic hair, after which he was unable to consummate the marriage. Annulment followed thereafter.
The hypocrisy that Dove is now being accused of is understandable but, let's face it, not of a Spitzerian magnitude. However, it is compounded by the fact that the product their ads were pushing were skin firming, cellulite reducing creams. So much for accepting "real" beauty! Perhaps we should just all agree that we are living in both the digital age and the age of hypocrisy.
The relationship between truth and beauty, reality and idealization, has always been fertile but tricky ground. That these “scandals” create attention and debate is not a bad thing.
For those who have been following this blog from the beginning, you may remember a post about Katherine Wolkoff and her silhouette portraits. Katherine has made a practice of alternating between pictures of people and landscapes but what connects them is always the specific physicality of the person or place and the technical virtuosity of the prints.
Katherine’s latest series are photographs of deer beds, and they are both subtle and stunning. (Deer sleep in beds of deep vegetation they press down with their bodies in order to hide from predators. They never lay down in the same bed twice, but the imprints can remain for several days.) What we see in the photographs are swirls of trampled grass, wild flowers, and a shadow outlining the hidden impression of the deer’s body. What we feel is the animal’s spirit, if not something deeper.
I spoke to Katherine for some background on the pictures and she explained that she had made the work on Block Island, following deer trails in the fields until she found the beds. It was an incredibly emotional experience. She chose to make the prints 40 by 50 inches - close to life size - so that the viewer can enter the space more easily and ponder the connection between what is there and what is not.
A number of the photographs can be seen for the first time in the Chisel exhibit curated by Kathy Ryan - part of the forthcoming New York Photo Festival which opens tomorrow.
It never ceases to amaze me how certain themes miraculously present themselves. Last week this card (above) arrived from Phillips auction house promoting their upcoming London sale, followed the next day by the catalog itself. The day after I was browsing in Rizzoli's bookstore and two different books on display presented photographs of masked women. They were both striking pictures so I snapped them on my iPhone and filed them in the back of my mind. This weekend I was in the gallery organizing j-pegs of some of the pictures in my collection and noticed that there were two mask pictures - an Arbus and an Elliott Erwitt. Finally I was looking up Adam Fuss on Artnet and discovered an entire series he had done on masks that I had never seen before!
If you were to ask me what my least favorite subjects for photographs are, I would say without hesitation: clowns and mimes. So you would think masks would be next in line, but there's something different and intriguing about masks - the play of concealment and revelation, the graphic boldness of the shape, the power they bestow on the wearer. The depiction and use of masks goes back as far as the cave paintings of Lascaux so there's something inherent in the human character that compels us to use masks. The making of elaborate masks was a vital part of Greek, Roman, African, Japanese and Chinese culture. Not so surprisingly, in America masks seems to have more sporting than cultural associations. Think catcher's mask, goalie mask, football helmets, etc.. I can't think of another country whose sports need more protection. The Canadian artist Brian Jungen made an enormous art world splash a few years ago with masks made entirely out of reconstituted Nike Air Jordans, tying together a critique of consumerism and the co-opting of native culture with the creation of compelling and original new works.
To finish off this mask round-up, I Just saw Iron Man which was as good as I hoped it would be and the metallic armor and mask the Robert Downey character creates is probably the best made superhero outfit ever. (Subject for debate?) In addition I pulled out a few of my other favorite mask pictures.
Inez Van Lamsweerde and Vinez Matoodhin from The Phillips catalog
Peter Lindbergh
Albert Watson
Irving Penn
Diane Arbus
Robert Capa
Elliott Erwitt. Candice Bergen at Truman Capote's Black and White Ball.
E.J. Bellocq
An Adam Fuss photogram
Brian Jungen
Ironman
P.S.
A few hours after posting this mask story, I received the following comment:
While I agree that the image is powerful and beautiful; and I appreciate your discussion on masks and its socio-cultural context. There is an additional angle an image like this brings up - that is the "black face" of minstrels in America of not too long passed. This is just another context for this image, not a critique. To think about image is to understand it many meanings in a multicultural world.
I think the writer makes an extremely valid point and my only response was to agree, and also to point out that because of the hair and make-up etc., I saw the image only as a fashion update of the baroque use of masks in balls, opera, commedia, etc., similar to the styling of the masked ball scene in Sofia Coppola's "Marie Antoinette". (See below.) The important lesson to me, though, is never to underestimate the different ways in which an image can be interpreted and to make clear no offense was intended.
Sofia Coppola. Kirsten Dunst in "Marie Antoinette"
The Raveonettes are a Danish rock duo whose music is characterized by two-part vocal harmonies inspired by early American pop coupled with hard-edged, distortion overlaid, electric guitar. Their songs juxtapose the structural simplicity of 50s and 60s rock with an intense blown-out sound, driving beats, and dark lyrical content similar to The Velvet Underground. "We are not scared of being blunt about what the references are in our music," says vocalist Sharin Foo. "For instance, if you look at our name, The Raveonettes, it's a complete direct reference to The Ronettes and Buddy Holly Rave On!" They’ve even had Ronnie Spector (lead singer of the Ronettes) guest on one of their recent albums.
I first heard their music on WFUV's "World Café" two nights ago and was mesmerized by the song “The Beat Dies” based on Angelo Badalamenti’s theme music for the t.v. mini-series Twin Peaks. For anyone who remembers that show and the music, this song connects straight to the subconscious. (On the radio Foo decribed it as burlesque meets rock and you can hear the bump and grind drum beat at the opening of the song.)
The sound quality is pretty bad on all the video clips available, in fact almost unlistenable, so this is more of a trailer to encourage you to go to iTunes and download the song, although be warned - the sound is somewhat murky on the album too. But I do really like the song and the color and unintentional verité feel of the film. I think the image that illustrates the clip (above) is pretty cool too - and even cooler for being randomly generated by YouTube.
Also below, a short clip of Sune Wagner and Sharin Foo talking about the song.
