Images of women : Peter Lindbergh

Le livre

Peter Lindbergh is one of the worlds most famous fashion photographers. But can one in fact pigeonhole Peter Lindberghs work into the relatively narrow category of fashion photography? Throughout the 20th century, fashion and art have not only exchanged forms and ideas, but have also profoundly influenced each other. ?Fiat modes, pereat ars?-?Let there be fashion-down with art.? It was with this provocatively ironic commentary on the relationship of art to fashion that Max Ernst cast doubt as early as 1919 on the centuries-old practice of drawing a definite distinction between art and everyday culture, between ?high and low?. Especially the functional aspect of fashion was until more recent times the thorn in the side of those who postulate the autonomy of the fine arts. Only in the works of those contemporary artists who mix their genres has the line of demarcation between fashion and art begun to blur. The Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake was already designing sculptural clothing in the 1980s. Artist photographers like Cindy Sherman, Nan Goldin and Hiroshi Sugimoto undertook commissions from fashion houses. The installations and performances of Sylvie Fleury and Vanessa Beecroft make direct reference to the glamorous world of fashion.\n\nFashion photography holds a special position in the dialogue between art and fashion: ?While on the one hand it is able to create in the public eye an image of fashion in the truest sense of the word, to conjure up the moods, attitudes and, indeed, the whole style of life in which the particular fashion is worn, it is, on the other hand, always under pressure to present fashion as merchandise in an optimum and sales-promoting manner.? (Bernd Skupin)\n\nAs early as the pre- and post-war period there were rebels among the fashion photographers who couldnt care less about the fashions they were commissioned to photograph. For photographers like Erwin Blumenfeld, Clifford Coffin and Platt Lynes, fashion was merely an o (...)