The dark side of fashion. | Guy Bourdin

Not what I expected | Guy Bourdin | Alison M. Gingeras

books:


	• Guy Bourdin Alison M. Gingeras Phaidon Press, 2006 - 128 pages average customer review:based on 3 reviews view larger image
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Size

Content is sensational but... being a photograph book, I just found it to be too small. Maybe in the future, book's dimensions could be stated within its description.

The dark side of fashion.

The genius of Bourdin was that he lived outside of the cutting edge. This is applicable to all humans because there are so many who don't care about the cutting edge but then there are always those who are running to that edge trying to stay with the trend no matter what it is, then of course there are voyeurs like Bourdin who live outside of it with a certain timelessness. In contrast designers in fashion create the line where the edge is and everyone tries to plant a flag somewhere around there so they can belong. I think Bourdin really understood this concept. He especially illuminates this viewpoint by the amount of reality he injects into such a fairy tale world of beauty.

To press that point I enjoyed the contradiction of his work that really went the wrong way because one of his main motifs was death accompanied by extreme youthful ideals, which is the quintessence of life. His pictures really do their best to shovel reality onto the viewer--to drive a little uneasiness into your routine.

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Not what I expected

I'm a big fan of the fashion stuff Bourdin shot in the seventies & eighties, especially his editorial work for French Vogue (there's never been a really good collection of this).
This book covers his career from the start to the early eighties but obviously not comprehensively given the size. While others may be interested in his earlier work (photos of Man Ray's studio etc.), I'm not. The latter half of the book gets into some of his later fashion photography that really made him famous, but only gives a taste of that part of his career.
It's not a bad book - but like I said it's an abbreviated peek at his whole career and I was really after something on his later fashion work.

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One of the Greatest Innovators of Fashion Photography; New Book Provides the Perfect Introduction To a Legendary Career.

Guy Bourdin (1928-1991) was one of the world's greatest innovators of fashion photography. While his contemporaries Richard Avedon and Helmut Newton achieved great notoriety and fame, Bourdin remains relatively unknown to the general public. But within the worlds of fashion and photography, he is a legend. Known for his difficult personality and groundbreaking images that mixed glamour, seduction and surrealism, the impact of Bourdin's work on both commercial and fine art photography continues to resonate today.

GUY BOURDIN, by Guggenheim curator Alison M. Gingeras, provides an illustrated overview of Bourdin's entire career featuring both iconic images, lesser-known photos and an introductory essay that provides a fresh perspective on his life and work, 15 years after his death.

Guy Bourdin worked for French Vogue for over 30 years where he demanded and was allowed full editorial control of his work. During the 1970's and 1980's, his photographs also filled the pages of international fashion magazines in campaigns for Charles Jourdan, Bloomingdales, Versace, Chanel and Dior. Bourdin's approach to advertising campaigns reflected a distinct change in this period by rejecting the `product shot' in favor of atmospheric, often surreal tableaux and suggestions of narrative. Bourdin was not alone in demystifying the object, but he was the most radical in his approach.

Gingeras' accessible introduction looks back on Bourdin's career and places him both in the context of his time and within the history of photography. She reveals that it's no accident that he is not a household name today because "during his lifetime, Bourdin refused to exhibit or sell his fashion photographs as autonomous prints...turning down offers to publish monographic studies of his work." The only "book" he ever made was a lingerie catalogue for Bloomingdales in 1976. By the time he died Bourdin succeeded in guaranteeing the anonymity he always wanted. But now, years later, his influence reigns on. In a recent The New York Times article, fashion writer Tim Blanks said, "Bourdin makes more sense now than he did 20 years ago... (he) had a scarily acute understanding of the heart of darkness that pulsates under society's glossy exterior."

There are numerous previously unpublished photos in Phaidon's GUY BOURDIN, in particular early works that were discovered in the Bourdin personal archive. The book succeeds in filling out the formative years of Bourdin's oeuvre as well as celebrating his most iconic images.

Guy Bourdin's fashion shoots were mysterious, hypnotic, surreal, exposing the true and unnerving nature of desire. He showed that, within the context of fashion, it is rarely the product that compels us. It is the image - carefully staged narrative of sexual fantasy, the quest for the unattainable with a suggestion of danger - that stimulates consumer desire.

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