The depth of fashion
• “Year of Fashion” part one is at ICP through May 3. Featuring “Edward Steichen: In High Fashion, The Condé Nast Years, 1923-1937,” “Weird Beauty: Fashion Photography Now,” “This is Not a Fashion Photograph” and “Munkacsi’s Lost Archive.”
Martin Munkacsi, "Tibor von Halmay and Vera Mahlke", ca. 1931
Flip through any style magazine, and you’ll see that contemporary fashion photography is about more than just the clothes.
Featuring stylized posing and deliberately contrived situations — chasing that “ugly-pretty,” as Tyra Banks says — these photos are as much about storytelling as selling clothes and accessories.
At least that’s the thesis of “Weird Beauty: Fashion Photography Now,” at the International Center of Photography.
The exhibit, which kicks off the “Year of Fashion” at ICP, examines the overlooked craft of fashion photography from both a historical and modern perspective.
Curator Vince Aletti makes the argument that fashion magazines possess “an incredible wealth of material that is very accessible to the public,” but don’t enjoy the attention that journalistic and artistic photography do.
The images on view in “Weird Beauty” are striking. Pages from international magazines are mounted on the wall to be admired for both their artistry and commercial worth. Models are more than mannequins; they’re living sculptures. The images are provocative and aggressive and sexual, and they demand the viewer’s attention.
But interesting to look at doesn’t necessarily equal art. The curators try to bolster their case with the neighboring “This is Not a Fashion Photograph,” one of three additional concurrent exhibitions, along with “Edward Steichen: In High Fashion” and “Munkacsi’s Lost Archive.”
“This is Not ...” features pieces from the permanent collection by respected photographers including Cindy Sherman, Weegee and Robert Mapplethorpe. Though they weren’t working in fashion, the images selected wouldn’t be out of place in a magazine. The idea is that these “serious” works were the precursor to modern fashion photography. While the photos of “Weird Beauty” may have adopted some of the techniques of these earlier works, that doesn’t necessarily lend them the same depth.
The downstairs exhibitions “Steichen” and “Munkacsi” look at work by two photographers working in the early half of the 20th century. From a fashionista perspective, it’s interesting to see these old portraits and the fashions they display. In addition, the exhibits provide some historical perspective on the genre of fashion photography.
As a whole, “Year of Fashion” is an interesting concept, but the execution has an air of seriousness and reverence that is a little more serious than the subject warrants.
