PDF - Fashion Space Gallery

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PART 1
Don’t Stop Now: Fashion Photography Next is curated by
Magdalene Keaney. The exhibition is initiated by Foam Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam
and co-produced with Fashion Space Gallery, London College of Fashion.
Image
Brendan Baker & Daniel Evans
Wet Look ’93, 2012 for LAW Magazine
15.01. – 28.02.15
If someone tells
you not to stop, it
means you must be
doing something
good to begin with.
The title of this
exhibition, Don’t
Stop Now: Fashion
Photography Next,
is thus intended as
a clarion call.
Don’t Stop Now: Fashion Photography
Next was first presented at FOAM
Photography Museum, Amsterdam, in
July 2014. The exhibition is based on
my research for a book titled Fashion
Photography Next (Thames & Hudson,
2014). A selection of artists and images
from the publication has been made
around three organizing concepts, which
form the architecture of the exhibition.
These are artifice/authenticity, materiality
and play. Each allows for some prevalent
ideas and themes found in contemporary
fashion image making, and contemporary
photography more widely, to emerge.
For Fashion Space Gallery, these three
themes have been then divided again in
two, allowing readings and combinations
of images unique to the spaces at
London College of Fashion, which are
conceptualized with the central London
location of the school in mind.
It is worth beginning by noting that
the overarching structure of a gallerybased exhibition is now just one of an
increasing range of platforms available
to photographers working in and around
fashion photography that includes
magazines, websites, blogs and digital
archives, online magazines, self-published
and independent books, zines, t-shirts,
posters and mainstream commercial
publications. Each has different
requirements for outcomes, which may be
commercial, experimental and so on, thus
necessarily facilitating or limiting a range
of different processes, creative choices
and modes of presentation, and even
affecting how one might be aware of the
platform (the zine or magazine, the blog
or digital archive) in the first place.
It is also useful to bear in mind that,
as much as it has the potential to be a
paper-based or printed object, the fashion
image is now often first, and sometimes
solely, a digital file viewed onscreen,
with or without a simultaneous material
form. The fashion shoot was radically
transformed by digital technology, and
a case could be made that the fashion
industry also led the development of
more sophisticated and seamless digital
hardware and software from the 1990s
into the first decade of the new century.
Digital operators and retouchers are now
a key part of the production of much
fashion photography, in which an image
is transferred almost instantaneously
from the lens-based capture to the on-set
screen. Digital files can be sent quickly
and shared, viewed and stored in large
volumes. They can be juxtaposed and
manipulated in a myriad of ways more
difficult or at least more time-consuming
and costly to achieve with analogue
technology and paper-based prints.
The first exhibition highlights process and
materiality, and juxtaposes this with work
in which a notion of play and performance
is central to the creation and reading of
the work.
Visitors may expect contemporary fashion
photography to be dominated by digital
practice. Yet many new-generation
photographers are returning to analogue
processes and technology, both as a
creative choice and as a refusal to comply
with commercial or client pressures to
shoot digitally. Both Clare Shilland and
Laetitia Nègre still make active use
of Polaroids, not only as a test before
exposing film, but also including them
in final editorial and commercial edits,
which may or may not also include
digital processes. Ruvan Wijesooriya’s
large-scale and unique Polaroid – now an
infrequently used format – is contrasted
with his enigmatic portrait, presented
broken down into a photocopied grid,
suggesting multiple copies could be
made and pinned to a wall anywhere.
Axel Hoedt shoots with film and largeformat cameras, constructing visual
effects in camera, then employing
darkroom printing processes, and even
embracing ‘mistakes’ such as double
exposures, to create his images. While
Jonathan Hallam now shoots both digital
and analogue, the rich colour and tonal
quality of negative film remains important
to his photographs. His Abstraction de
Sensation combines this depth of colour,
overlaid with a series of light projections
onto the model, also incorporating the use
of mirrors. Other photographers, including
Mel Bles, Daniel Sannwald and Harley
Weir, explore materiality by embracing
both digital and analogue techniques
as the need or inclination strikes.
Sannwald’s practice is experimental and
unpredictable; with each new commission
he finds a radical way to represent the
garments he presents. In some of his
most extreme work so far, figures are
entirely deconstructed into pixelated
colour blocks. Mel Bles’ playful creative
methods also embrace a range of
techniques, notably collage, and a single
image may combine different image
resolutions, depths of field, light sources
and points of perspective.
The contrasting concept explored in
the second exhibition is play. Some of
the images in this part of the exhibition
employ irony and humour. Some are
relevant to current discussions around
post-internet culture, including possible
tensions between ‘virtual’ and ‘real’,
the proliferation of generic images
available on the web, and our ADD
image-consumption habits. The blatant
intervention of the photographer in the
mechanics of the photographic process,
through arrangement, is a conceptual
challenge to the idea of the objectivity
or truth of the photographic image. It
can also highlight structural or relational
concerns. Laetitia Hotte is one of the
newest talents featured in the exhibition.
Her work is often free of any background
narrative and conveys a cool detachment
and a compelling formalism. Hannah
Putz, who shoots exclusively with film
and natural light, is also interested in
formal aspects of image making, and
uses minimal backgrounds, plain interiors
and unpatterned clothes. The models,
often her friends, become abstracted
compositional elements and sometimes
strangely beautiful studies in shape and
action/interaction. Brendan Baker and
Daniel Evans use composition, framing
and colour block backgrounds to create
new readings for objects as familiar as
a pair of earrings or as banal as a hair
extension. Charlie Engman’s images
are frequently composites. His coloured
backdrops and obviously handmade sets
confound and complicate space within
the photographic frame in relation to the
human body and real-world space. In
Jacob Sutton’s photographs, the human
body is often the trigger for demonstration
of concepts such as balance, cause and
effect, speed, motion, gravity and impact.
Two of the most prevalent approaches to
‘subject’ in the making of contemporary
fashion photography are explored in
the second exhibition – these are the
documentary or personal diaristic mode,
as well as a fantasy or filmic narrative
construct. Central to this presentation
life and storytelling. Narrative, fantasy
and directorial cinematic approaches
are only limited by the imagination
of the photographer and the space
provided by the platform presenting
the work. The artifice of the fashion
image is consciously and meaningfully
embraced, and in some cases exploited
or subverted, as stories or character
studies develop and are played out, often
over a large sequence of images. Julia
Hetta creates fantastical worlds of her
It is an
opportunity to
celebrate work
which is vital,
progressive
and dynamic.
is an idea of contrast between the
two positions, but at the same time
a suggestion that divisions of either
‘fantasy’ or ‘fact’ are often not simplistic
or clear-cut in contemporary practice.
Both approaches have particular stylistic
characteristics, which can be used
progressively and originally, but also refer
to well-trodden historical traditions in
fashion photography. They are forms that
imply meaning and which are used to
develop a style or concept, or to address
specific issues.
So, for example, Jamie Hawkesworth,
Chardchakaj Waikawee, Samuel Hodge,
Chad Moore and Tyrone Lebon all utilize
a broadly realist approach, often shooting
friends or street casting, and moving
with confidence between more formally
rigid genre modes such as portraiture,
documentary, still life and fashion. These
images have the potential to be fashion
images but also to deal with complex
issues around class, sexuality, identity
and individuality, cultural or social
alienation, or equally, empowerment
and celebration. Alice Hawkins may at
times employ a documentary style but
also incorporates fantasy, role-play and
tableaux as strategies in the celebration of
her sitters’ fashionability and style. Immo
Klink, whose practice is, like many in
the exhibition, diverse and characterized
by a wonderful hybridity, offers us a
Levi’s campaign disguised as a fake
encounter with a UFO and presented as
though he was really there, recording it
all as it happened. Dennis Schoenberg
employs a relatively straightforward
portrait-based approach, but infuses this
with a contemporary romantic sensibility
that blurs the distinction between real
own imagining, where vivid colours can
disrupt a surreal sequence and jolt the
viewer back to the here and now. Dan
Jackson employs a physical, method actor
approach to developing characters for
studio-based stories such as It’s My Party,
about decadence and lost innocence.
Saga Sig’s symbolist images evoke neoViking magical rituals, which are both
self-conscious and stagey but brilliantly
intriguing. Robi Rodriguez works like a
film director whose narratives gradually
unfold; here, a beautiful girl and a gorilla
play out a sexually charged domestic
drama. Erik Madigan Heck has used a
variety of digital and analogue processes
to transform his models into flying paper
cutouts in a dreamlike composition
reminiscent of a Marc Chagall painting.
Seen together, these exhibitions are a
platform for a group of new-generation
photographers, in one way or another
making fashion images, who are not
widely known outside industry experts
but should be. It is an opportunity to
celebrate work that is vital, progressive
and dynamic. This engagement matters.
By us, as an audience, stopping to
consider, discuss, critique and enjoy
this presentation, we create further
momentum and energy to propel these
photographers towards the future.
Magdalene Keaney
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Daniel Sannwald
Untitled, 2012
For Interview Germany
Stylist: Kathi Kauder
Hair: Tina Outen
Make-up: Isamaya Ffrench
Special effects mask: Jez @ Crawley Creatures
3
Daniel Sannwald
Untitled, 2012
For Arena Homme +
Stylist: Max Permain
Hair: Chi Wong
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Daniel Sannwald
Untitled, 2011
For Arena Homme +
Stylist: Simon Foxton
Grooming: Gemma Smith-Edhouse
Daniel Sannwald
Untitled, 2008
For Dazed and Confused
Make-up: Ayami Nishimura
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Jonathan Hallam
Abstraction de Sensation, 2010
For Sleek Magazine
Stylist: Katy Lassen
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Ruvan Wijesooriya
Polaroid negative (Malin #1), NYC, 2007
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Jonathan Hallam
Untitled, 2009
For French Magazine
Stylist: Mary Fellowes
Hair: Simon Izzard
Make-up: Georgina Chapman
Clothing: turtleneck and skirt, Vintage Jean Paul Gaultier; Lurex tights, Sonia Rykiel
Ruvan Wijesooriya
Gridprint (Annabelle), NYC, 2012
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Mel Bles
Balenciaga, Act, 2012
For Pop Magazine
In collaboration with Linder, courtesy of Stuart
Shave/Modern Art London
Creative direction: Vanessa Reid
Art direction: Clunie Reid
Fashion editor: Vanessa Reid
Hair: Tomo Jidai at Streeters
Make-up: Gemma Smith-Edhouse
Mel Bles
Celine, Closer, 2012
For Pop Magazine
Collaboration sculpture by Lucy and Jorge Orta
Fashion editor/stylist: Vanessa Reid
Hair: Laurent Phillipon
Make-up: Alice Ghendrih
11
Mel Bles
Balenciaga, Act, 2012
For Pop Magazine
In collaboration wih Linder, courtesy of Stuart
Shave/Modern Art London
Creative direction: Vanessa Reid
Art direction: Clunie Reid
Fashion editor: Vanessa Reid
Hair: Tomo Jidai at Streeters
Make-up: Gemma Smith-Edhouse
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Axel Hoedt
Untitled, 2011
For i-D Magazine
Stylist: Hanna Kelifa
Make-up: Natsumi Watanabe
Hair: Robin Pawloski
All clothing: Alexander McQueen
Axel Hoedt
Untitled, 2011
For i-D Magazine
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Axel Hoedt
Untitled, n.d.
Axel Hoedt
Untitled, 2011
For i-D Magazine
Stylist: Hanna Kelifa
Make-up: Natsumi Watanabe
Hair: Robin Pawloski
All clothing: Alexander McQueen
POLAROIDS
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16 Laetitia Nègre
Jamie Bochert, 2013
For Alexandre Vauthier Haute Couture
20 Laetitia Nègre
Daiane Conterato, 2010
For Valentino Haute Couture
17 Laetitia Nègre
Jamie Bochert, 2013
For Chanel Haute Couture
21 Laetitia Nègre
Daiane Conterato, 2010
For Armani Privé
18 Laetitia Nègre
Jamie Bochert, 2013
For Maison Martin Margiela Artisanal
22 Laetitia Nègre
Daiane Conterato, 2010
For Valentino Haute Couture & Haider Ackermann
19 Laetitia Nègre
Daiane Conterato, 2010
For Alexis Mabille Haute Couture
23 Laetitia Nègre
Daiane Conterato, 2010
For Armani Privé
24 Laetitia Nègre
Untitled, 2010
25 Laetitia Nègre
Emma Balfour, 2010
26 - 33 Clare Shilland
Untitled, 2013
For Marni Book, Menswear
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Hannah Putz
Untitled (SDD), 2012
‘Avalon’ for Oyster Magazine #98
Fashion editor/stylist: Nobuko Tannawa
Make-up: Nobuko Maekawa
Hair: Roku Roppongi
Clothing: Valentino
Charlie Engman
Untitled, 2013
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Hannah Putz
Untitled (LL 1), 2011
‘Out of the box’ for New York Magazine
Fashion market editing: Michelle Reneau
Make-up: Nobuko Maekawa
Clothing: 3.1 Phillip Lim
Charlie Engman
Untitled, 2012
For C’N’C Costume National
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Hannah Putz
Untitled (Grandqvist 2), 2012
Charlie Engman
MOM (doubleface), 2012
From the series MOM
Fashion editor/stylist: Tracy Nicholson
Make-up: Robert Greene
Clothing: coat, Jil Sander; shoes, Celine
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Charlie Engman
Untitled, 2013
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Charlie Engman
Untitled, 2013
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Charlie Engman
MOM (ketchup and mustard), 2012
From the series MOM
Fashion editor/stylist: Tracy Nicholson
Make-up: Robert Greene
Clothing (from left to right): coat, Yohji
Yamamoto; skirt, Costume National;
shoes, Celine; coat, Marni; sweater,
Louis Vuitton; shoes, Miu Miu
Charlie Engman
Untitled, 2013
For Hermès
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Laetitia Hotte
Line, 2013
From the series Kenzo
Harley Weir
Stairway to Heaven, 2013
For Double Magazine
Styling: Max Pearmain
Hair: Alexandry Costa & Kota Suizu
Make-up: Nami Yoshida
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Jacob Sutton
Powder Story No. 3, 2007
For Mixte Magazine
Stylist: Celestine Cooney
Jacob Sutton
Danceteria No. 1, 2009
For The New York Times
Fashion director: Bruce Dash
Choreographer: Jonah Bokaer
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Jacob Sutton
Powder Story No. 4, 2007
For Mixte Magazine
Stylist: Celestine Cooney
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Jacob Sutton
Danceteria No. 3, 2009
For The New York Times
Fashion director: Bruce Dash
Choreographer: Jonah Bokaer
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Brendan Baker & Daniel Evans
Whistles x Lulu Frost, 2012
For Whistles
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Brendan Baker & Daniel Evans
Alice Gibberd, 2013
For AnOther Magazine
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Brendan Baker & Daniel Evans
One Pound, Two Fold, 2013
For Vice Italia
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Brendan Baker & Daniel Evans
Untitled, 2012
For Sleeping Through an Earthquake
Brendan Baker & Daniel Evans
Topshop x JW Anderson, 2012
For Topshop
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Brendan Baker & Daniel Evans
Wet Look ’93, 2012
For LAW Magazine
Stylists: John Holt and Joe Prince
Hair: Zara Toppin
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Brendan Baker & Daniel Evans
Wet Look ’93, 2012
For LAW Magazine
Stylists: John Holt and Joe Prince
Hair: Zara Toppin
Brendan Baker & Daniel Evans
One Pound, Two Fold, 2013
For Vice Italia
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Brendan Baker & Daniel Evans
Pier Wu AW12–13, 2012
For Pop Magazine
Brendan Baker & Daniel Evans
Dazed, 2013
For Openlab Magazine
Fashion director: Nickque Patterson
Hair: Fabio Vivan
Make-up: Molly Portsmouth
ZINES
120 second videos
Turn left when exiting the gallery to see a
vitrine featuring a selection of zines created by
the photographers or that feature their work.
60 Brendan Baker & Daniel Evans
Untitled, 2012
For Sleeping Through an Earthquake
64 Tyrone Lebon
Nothing Lasts Forever
Published by DoBeDo Books, 2011
69 Dennis Schoenberg
Suzy
Self-published, 2014
61 Jamie Hawkesworth/
Adam Murray/Robert Parkinson
Preston is My Paris,
Preston Bus Station
Writing: Aidan Turner Bishop
Published: October, 2010
Edition: 500
Printed: The Newspaper Club
www.prestonismyparis.co.uk
65 Erik Madigan Heck
January to August –
Photographs, Paintings and Words
Published by Nomenus Quarterly, 2011
70 Clare Shilland
Love from Alice
Published by DoBeDo Books
62 Samuel Hodge
Pretty Telling I Suppose
Published by Rainoff, 2009
67 Chad Moore
Thirteen
Published by Glassine Box (USA), 2013
63 Axel Hoedt
Untitled
Self-published, 2014
68 Dennis Schoenberg
Young Soul Rebels
Self-published, 2014
66 Chad Moore
Anyone in Love With You
(Already Knows)
Published by Dienacht (Germany), 2014
71 Ruvan Wijesooriya
Masculinism
Published by Rouge 58, 2013
72 Ruvan Wijesooriya
All Night New York
Self-published, 2008
The photographers were asked to make a
short film intended to say something about
themselves, their practice or their process.
There was no other brief, so the specific
approach was left open.
See these newly commissioned short films
in the entrance window on the ground
floor. Contributing photographers include:
Brendan Baker & Daniel Evans, Mel Bles,
Charlie Engman, Jonathan Hallam, Jamie
Hawkesworth, Alice Hawkins, Erik Madigan
Heck, Samuel Hodge, Dan Jackson, Immo
Klink, Tyrone Lebon, Chad Moore, Hannah
Putz, Daniel Riera, Robi Rodriguez, Daniel
Sannwald, Clare Shilland, Saga Sig, Jacob
Sutton, Philippe Vogelenzang, Chardchakaj
Waikawee (AIR), Tung Walsh, Harley Weir
and Ruvan Wijesooriya.
The exhibition at Fashion Space Gallery was
re-curated to suit the space and approach by
Magdalene Keaney, with Ligaya Salazar and
Assistant Curator Polona Dolzan.
Exhibition Design by Joana Filipe
Graphic Design by Lauren Chalmers
Special thanks go to Leanne Earle-Reid
for additional research.
Fashion Space Gallery
1st Floor, London College of Fashion
20 John Prince’s Street
London W1G OBJ
www.fashionspacegallery.com
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FashionSpaceLDN
FashionSpaceGallery
FashionSpaceGallery
#FashionPhotographyNext
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PART 2
COMING SOON
WWW.FASHIONSPACEGALLERY.COM
Image:
Tung Walsh Myla, Flashing
NYC, 2012