EXHIBITION IN MUNICH: “FROM FASHION TO REALITY” BY PETER LINDBERGH

I guess, we are this kind of “coffee book generation”. We all love them, but most of the time they just lie around useless and are plain decoration. But there is one book of photography in my appartment, which is different. It’s inspiring me everytime anew: This one is about Peter Lindberghs black-white photography, which marked the beginning of the era of celebrity models and redefined the image of the modern woman.

Now Lindbergh has openend its archives and gave some of his greatest work to show in an exhibition in the Kunsthalle in Munich – starting from April 13th until August 27th 2017.

“FROM FASHION TO REALITY”: FLEETING MOMENTS AND NATURAL MODELS

Peter Lindbergh, who was born in Lissa in 1944, is one of the most influential fashion photographers of the past forty years. Especially in the 1990s, the German photographer was the one to give distinction to the supermodels from Kate Moss to Christy Turlington and the one who gave black white photography the naturality and purity back. Like he did to the young Kate Moss in the opening picture of this article in 1993.

But much of it is published in short-lived print media, like monthly fashion magazines – but there is so much more to tell about Lindbergh.

Avoiding the artifice of fashion photography, he was the first to focus on the unique personalities of his models. Instead of beautifully dressed human “clothes horses”, heportrayed self-assured and expressive persons. Often referred to as the “Poet of Glamour” or “Photographer of Truth”, Lindbergh considers himself more anti-glamour. Models like Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, Kate Moss, Christy Turlington and Tatjana Patitz, among others, were young and unknown when Lindbergh photographed them in the late 1970s and 1980s. But Lindbergh also shows that twenty-five or thirty years later, they have not lost any of their beauty and personality, when he is doing some shots again. Like the one with Kate Moss.

EMOTIONAL PHOTOGRAPHIES WITH ANTI-GLAMOUR

INSPIRATION AND THE FIRST FASHION STORY TELLER

Lindbergh was the first to use fashion photography as a medium of storytelling. Often, his images are inspired by the avant-garde cinema of the 1920s to 1950s or science fiction movies. Lindbergh was the first to use fashion photography as a medium of storytelling. Often resembling film stills, the momentariness of his photographs encourages the beholder to spin the story behind the scene.

THE EXHIBITION AND THE KUNSTHALLE MUNICH

Visitors of the exhibition “Fashion to Reality” in Munich will experience the aesthetic of Lindbergh’s work across eight different sections: “Supermodels”, “Couturiers”, “Zeitgeist”, “Dance”, “The Darkroom”, “The Unknown”, “Silver Screen” and “Icons”.

Exhibition: “From Fashion to Reality – Peter Lindbergh” from April 13 to August 27, 2017.

Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung, Theatinerstraße 8, 80333 Munich/München,

open daily from 10 am to 8 pm.

Photo credit: Courtesy of Peter Lindbergh, Paris / Gagosian Gallery