Guy Bourdin, Charles Jourdan, 1979
Published in Photomonitor, 06 March 2015
Somerset House, London
27 November 2014 - 15 March 2015
Disembodied mannequin legs donning Charles Jourdan stilettos walk across the grainy surface of a vintage polaroid. Suspended in animation, the plastic legs strut along a deserted English boardwalk. Simultaneously eerily present and absent, they quietly echo the eroticism that saturated fashion spreads in the late 1970s while systematically disengaging from the normalization of the sexualization of the female form. This photograph, along with many others from the same series, sets the tone for the Guy Bourdin: Image-Maker exhibition at Somerset House. Both hauntingly distant and familiar, the images speak of the surrealist tendencies of the 1920s, of Alfred Hitchcock’s aesthetic cues, of the fabricated truths that surround consumerism and of fashion photography’s ultimate pursuit of perfection.
Exhibiting over 200 works and previously unseen material from Bourdin’s estate from 1955 to 1987, the aesthetic of the show quickly evolves into a distilled avant-garde form of fashion photography, as the plain plastic legs give way to 80s big hair, bright red lipstick, lacquered nails and sensual silhouettes. Needless to say, there is a marked contrast between the two sets of images. Yet, the simplicity and purity of the iconography used throughout the beginning of his practice remains intact. Much like his earlier body of work, the images are classic in their composition but possess an unexpected contortion that somehow reverberates a sense of uncanny horror. It is this infusion of eerie terror that toys with the audience’s definition of beauty and desirability, subtly morphing the realm of fashion photography.
Fashion photography – at its base, an art medium used to sell products – moves away from tradition in Bourdin’s oeuvre, as the image’s point of focus is transferred from the consumerist good to the composition as a whole. Advertising more than a pair of shoes, a piece of clothing, jewelry or lipstick, they draw the beholder into a world of intrigue and subversion; hence the product becomes secondary and almost incidental, a mere aesthetic cue used to move the twisted plot forward. From his professional debut for Vogue Paris in the fifties, Bourdin influenced the course of commercial photography through these ribbons of narrative that continue to inspire some of the most eminent contemporary photographers from Tim Walker to Nick Knight. Each constructed image is a portal into his world, a world real or imagined that you cannot help but wish you had been a part of. Above all else, it is Bourdin’s unyielding style of visual storytelling that never ceases to surprise, shock and provoke the audience. The narratives that run through his frames map his progression from Man Ray’s protégé to one of the leading figure in fashion photography, and firmly anchor his work within the art canon.
