Miles Aldridge, Home Works #3, 2008. [Photo provided to China Daily]
Fashion photography, once thought frivolous, has become art's rising star with a new visual language
At one time, not so very long ago, the only place to see a fashion photograph was in the pages of a magazine or possibly stuck to the wall of a teenage girl's bedroom; but things have changed, with museums holding major exhibitions, galleries and auction houses selling fashion images, and publishers constantly releasing new titles devoted to fashion photography. Removed from its original context (the magazine page), fashion photography has become art's rising star.
The art world has become more receptive to the medium as museums have moved from high art to an all-embracing visual culture. For a long time, fashion photography was seen as exclusively commercial. However, contemporary photographers don't necessarily conceive of their work as fitting into one single category or medium.
Erik Madigan Heck, Comme Des Garçons, 2017. [Photo provided to China Daily]
In the 21st century, boundaries between editorial work, advertising work and personal work are now blurring. Digital media have changed the way photography is reported, consumed and shared. With the explosion of street-style blogs, Instagram and Pinterest, fashion photography has become the new visual language.
And where the previous generation of visual icons such as Nick Knight, Paolo Roversi, Peter Lindbergh, Ellen von Unwerth and others set a new bar decades ago and still are, a new generation of photographers, Blommers and Schumm, Solve Sundsbo, Daniel Sannwalkd, Coco Capitan, Viviane Sassen and Erik Madigan Heck, are taking the lead and shooting fashion and beauty in such a way as to challenge the standardized ideals of fashion and beauty.
They reject the notions of the hyper-sexualised body and celebrity driven fashion visions that represented the naked consumerism of the 2000s. Their fashion subjects are distorted and twisted, and the clothing has become a form of draping rather than dressing. Such a visual evolution has been mirrored by the rise of designers such as Demna Gvasalia and stylists such as Lotta Volkova across brands like Vetements and Balenciaga.
Nick Knight, Snakes for Alexander McQueen, 2009. [Photo provided to China Daily]
Ultimately, as clothes horse has become character and the body has gone from being prop to plot detail, fashion photography has become a lens through which to see new ways of thinking about and discussing race, politics, gender, age and more.
Handpicked by curator and art historian Nathalie Herschdorfer, Beyond Fashion at ArtisTree in Taikoo Place, features 100 of the finest photographic fashion works by more than 40 of today's leading photographers, along with a selection of films accompanying the still images. (Until February 24, 2019). (taikooplace.com)
