Press Release

/
PETER LINDBERGH
FROM FASHION TO REALIT Y
April 13 August 27, 2017

Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung

Theatinerstrasse 8 | 80333 Munich
T +49 (0)89 / 22 44 12 | kontakt@kunsthalle-muc.de
www.kunsthalle-muc.de/en
THE KUNSTHALLE MUNICH PRESENTS A
MAJOR EXHIBITION ON PETER LINDBERGH

This spectacular exhibition about German photographer

Peter Lindbergh (born 1944 in Lissa), one of the most
inluential fashion photographers of the past forty years,
features more than 220 photographs. His iconic images,
with which he heralded the supermodel phenomenon
in the 1990s, will be presented along with unpublished
photographs and unseen material, varying from personal
notes, storyboards, props, polaroids, contact sheets and
ilms to monumental prints. His avant-garde images
quickly addressed concerns of society in a world with
established aesthetic codes: his pure black-and-white
photographs have determined the course of fashion
photography since the early 1980s.

Lindberghs predominantly black and white

photographs that capture the leeting moment opened
up a new dimension of realism in fashion photography,
revolutionizing the visual idiom of the well-known
magazines and fashion labels. Avoiding the artiice of
fashion photography, Lindbergh was the irst to focus
on the unique personalities of his models. Instead
of beautifully dressed human clothes horses, he
portrayed self-assured, expressive personas, from the femme fatale to the heroine, but also the
female dancer and the actress. His oeuvre is characterized by portraits that radiate a certain lack of
inhibition and physical grace.

Curator Thierry-Maxime Loriot who

previously presented Jean Paul Gaultier.
From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk at
the Kunsthalle Munich explains: This
exhibition is not a chronological survey,
but a narrative in which you discover
the universe of Peter Lindbergh through
his unique eye, his strong themes and
his collaborations with artists like Pina
Bausch and Jenny Holzer. It also reveals
the humanism found in his work, seen in a
social context. It says a lot about his own
values, his vision on ageism, beauty and
femininity, on social issues and reveals the
boundless creativity and imagination found
in his photographs.
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
The exhibition From Fashion to Reality
is an homage to Lindberghs multifaceted
oeuvre from 1978 to the present day. The
show has a thematic approach, marking
his creative development and focusing on
the passions he developed over the years.
Eight different sections have been devised:
Supermodels, Couturiers, Zeitgeist,
Dance, The Darkroom, The Unknown,
Silver Screen and Icons

SUPERMODELS

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. Later, their irst names became
household names that rolled off tongues the
world over. While the focus of inluential
fashion magazines like Harpers Bazaar or
Vogue had hitherto been on the clothes, the
spotlight was now being shone onto the
women presenting them.

This section shows Lindberghs iconic pictures from the 1990s and is complemented with
photographs from the recent reunion of the supermodels (published in Vogue Italia, september
2015). Lindbergh shows that twenty-ive years later, they have not lost any of their beauty and
personality.

COUTURIERS

In 1978, Stern commissioned Lindbergh to shoot

renowned couturiers like Yves Saint Laurent and hip
young designers like Giorgio Armani or Thierry Mugler.
From then on, he increasingly collaborated with the big
names of the fashion world German icons Karl Lagerfeld,
Jil Sander, Thomas Maier, but also Azzedine Alaa, Jean
Paul Gaultier or Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garons.
Lindbergh managed to disrupt the ixed codes of the
fashion industry and made a reputation for their brands.
His collaborations with twenty-ive fashion designers
from various eras and the way in which Lindbergh helped
shape the image of fashion houses is amply covered in the
section Couturiers.
DANCE

Frequently Lindbergh combined fashion

photography with his passion for dance, one
of his major sources of inspiration. He worked
on a visual history of dance with series of
photographs based on famous dancers and
choreographers, such as Sergei Diaghilev
or Georges Balanchine, Spanish dancer and
choreographer Blanca Li and companies like
the Bolshoi, Berlins Staatsballett and the New
York City Ballet. He also made a ilm called
Pina Bausch. Der Fensterputzer (2001), on
his late friend Pina Bausch, and portrayed
Madonna dressed by Japanese designers in a
tribute to the great American choreographer
Martha Graham.

ZEITGEIST

With his humanist approach and his play

on masculinity and femininity, Lindbergh
subverted the fashion industrys rigid
conventions. Gender issues and political
statements are the subject in the Zeitgeist-
section. A series called Give peace a
Chance shows the models in an anti-war-
demonstration-set that he made for Harpers
Bazaar in 2004. Similarly, A New Age was
shot for Italian Vogue in 2014, in close collaboration with American conceptual artist Jenny Holzer.
Having drastically changed the standards of fashion photography in times of excessive retouching,
Lindbergh chooses natural beauty, with as much emphasis on personality as on outward
appearance celebrating the elegance and sensuality of older women, like in his Pirelli-Calendar
for 2017. In a 2014 interview, he declared that: This should be the responsibility of photographers
today: to free women, and inally everyone, from the terror of youth and perfection, believing that
there is something more than standards of beauty and youth that makes a person interesting.

THE UNKNOWN

Lindbergh was the irst to use

fashion photography as a medium
of storytelling. Often resembling
ilm stills, the momentariness of
his photographs encourages the
beholder to spin the story behind
the scene. The Unknown reveals
Lindberghs fascination with science
iction and includes his famous 1990
series featuring the Danish model
Helena Christensen and the actress
Debbie Lee Carrington, which many
consider as the pioneering story of
narratives in fashion magazines.
SILVER SCREEN

To some extent, Lindberghs stylistic inspiration has its roots in the esthetics of international avant-
garde cinema from the 1920s to the 1950s: his settings are reminiscent of the engine room in Fritz
Langs Metropolis, the cabaret in Josef von Sternbergs The Blue Angel and the ilm sets of Alfred
Hitchcocks The Birds or Psycho. Moreover, time and again, he comes back to the raw industrial
architecture that is familiar to him from a childhood and adolescence spent in Duisburg, creating
an intriguing tension between the backdrop and his models. Silver Screen shows these ilmic
inluences on Lindberghs work.

ICONS

Often referred to as the Poet of Glamour or Photographer of Truth, Lindbergh considers himself
more anti-glamour, as he dismisses all notions of social status in his images. Erasing hierarchy
in his pictures, he captures moments of truth, celebrating the natural beauty and elegance of
the person in front of his camera. The Icons gallery is presented as a visual journey through
four decades of timeless images. He captured iconic igures of pop culture, from Kate Winslet
to Charlotte Rampling, from Eddie Redmayne to Christoph Waltz, from Tina Turner to Pharrell
Williams, all with a powerful emotional appeal.
LINDBERGHS OEUVRE
IN CONTEXT

Since much of it is published in short-

lived print media, like monthly fashion
magazines, some of Lindberghs work has
faded into obscurity, despite its historical
signiicance. Other photographs have never
been shown in public. For this exhibition,
Lindbergh opened up the doors to his
archive, granting curator Thierry-Maxime
Loriot unlimited access. Taking images
from this vast collection, Loriot has added
making-of and behind-the-scenes material
to Lindberghs oficial oeuvre, thereby
providing fresh insight into the history of photography over the last few decades. Additionally, ilm
excerpts and interviews with collaborators, models and actors throw light on the artist. Lindberghs
Models. The Film (1991, 52 minutes) will be screened, as well as interviews with Grace Coddington,
Nicole Kidman, Cindy Crawford and German supermodel Nadja Auermann, among others.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Known for his memorable cinematic images, Peter Lindbergh is recognized as one of the most
inluential contemporary photographers. Born in Lissa (present-day Poland, then occupied German
territory) in 1944, he spent his childhood in Duisburg (North Rhine-Westphalia). He worked as a
window dresser for a local department store and enrolled in the Berlin Academy of Fine Arts in the
early 1960s. He remembers these years: I preferred actively seeking the inspirations of Van Gogh,
my idol, rather than painting the mandatory portraits and landscapes taught in art schools... .
Inspired by the painter, he moved to Arles for almost a year, and then embarked on a journey
hitchhiking through Spain and North Africa. He later studied free painting at the College of Art in
Krefeld and was inluenced by Joseph Kosuth and the conceptual movement. Before graduating, he
was invited to exhibit his work at the renowned avant-garde Galerie Denise Ren-Hans Mayer in 1969.

After moving to Dsseldorf in 1971, he turned his attention to photography and worked for two
years assisting German photographer Hans Lux, before opening his own studio in 1973. Becoming
well known in his native country, he joined the Stern magazine, just like photography legends
Helmut Newton, Guy Bourdin and Hans Feurer. In 1978, he moved to Paris to further his career.

Back in 1988, Lindbergh garnered international acclaim and launched the careers of a new
generation of models whom he had recently discovered, showing them all dressed in white shirts.
A year later, he photographed Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Christy
Turlington and Hamburg-born Tatjana Patitz, together for the irst time, for the legendary January
1990 Vogue UK cover.

It were Lindberghs photographs, and in particular this cover, that marked the beginning of the
era of celebrity models and redeined the image of the modern woman. They inspired pop singer
George Michael to create his iconic video for his song Freedom! 90.
In the May 2016 issue of the prestigious magazine Art Forum, Lindbergh declares in an interview
with journalist Isabel Flower, that: A fashion photographer should contribute to deining the image
of the contemporary woman or man in their time, to relect a certain social or human reality. How
surrealistic is todays commercial agenda to retouch all signs of life and of experience, to retouch
the very personal truth of the face itself?

Lindbergh has worked with the most prestigious fashion brands and magazines since the late
1970s, including international editions of Vogue, as well as The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Vanity
Fair, Harpers Bazaar US, Wall Street Journal Magazine, Visionaire, Interview and W. In 2016,
Lindbergh was commissioned for a record third time to create the 2017 edition of the Pirelli
calendar, being the irst one to shoot it more than twice in the ifty years history of the iconic
calendar. His work is part of the permanent collections of many ine arts museums around the world
and has also been shown in prestigious museums and galleries. Among these are the Victoria
& Albert Museum (London), Centre Pompidou (Paris), as well as solo exhibitions at Hamburger
Bahnhof (Berlin), Bunkamura Museum of Art (Tokyo) and the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts
(Moscow).

Lindbergh has directed a number of critically acclaimed ilms and documentaries: Models. The Film
(1991); Inner Voices (1999), which won the Best Documentary prize at the Toronto International
Film Festival (TIFF) in 2000; Pina Bausch. Der Fensterputzer (2001) and Everywhere at Once (2007),
which was narrated by Jeanne Moreau and presented at the Cannes and Tribeca Film Festivals.

Lindbergh is represented by Gagosian Gallery and 2b Management.

He currently lives between Paris, Arles and New York.

The exhibition Peter Lindbergh. From Fashion to Reality was developed by Kunsthal Rotterdam
in collaboration with curator Thierry-Maxime Loriot and Peter Lindbergh, under the title Peter
Lindbergh. A Different Vision on Fashion Photography.
To accompany the exhibition, Taschen has published a high quality book of 472 pages.

On the occasion of the exhibition, Peter Lindbergh designed the window displays at Ludwig Beck
department store on Marienplatz, Munichs main square.

Press ofice: Leonie Mellinghoff, T +49 (0) 89 / 37 82 81 62, presse@kunsthalle-muc.de

Exhibition by

Premium partner Partners Media partners

Images (front to back): White Shirts: Estelle Lfebure, Karen Alexander, Rachel Williams, Linda Evangelista, Tatjana Patitz & Christy
Turlington, Malibu, 1988 | Kate Moss, Paris, 2014, Vogue Italia, Giorgio Armani, S/S 2015 | Tina Turner, Paris, 1989, Stern, Azzedine
Alaa, S/S 1989 | Cindy Crawford, Tatjana Patitz, Helena Christensen, Linda Evangelista, Claudia Schiffer, Naomi Campbell, Karen
Mulder & Stephanie Seymour, Brooklyn, 1991, Vogue US, Versace, F/W 19911992 | John Galliano, Paris, France, 1996
Harpers Bazaar | Dancer from Bolshoi Ballet, Moscow, 2012 | Angela Lindvall & Chris Dye, Warner Bros Studios, Burbank, California,
USA, 2004, Harpers Bazaar | Michaela Bercu, Linda Evangelista & Kirsten Owen, Nancy, 1988, Comme des Garons advertising
campaign, S/S 1988 | All images: Peter Lindbergh (Courtesy of Peter Lindbergh, Paris / Gagosian Gallery) |
Peter Lindbergh, London, 2016, Stefan Rappo
OPENING HOURS
daily 10am8 pm; 30.6.: 10am5pm
every third Wednesday of the month 10am10pm: 19.4., 17.5., 21.6., 19.7. and 16.8.

DIRECTOR
Roger Diederen

CURATOR OF THE EXHIBITION

Thierry-Maxime Loriot

PRESS ENQUIRIES
Leonie Mellinghoff, T +49 (0)89 / 37 82 81 62, presse@kunsthalle-muc.de

PRESS IMAGES FOR DOWNLOAD

www.kunsthalle-muc.de/press_area/en/peterlindbergh

ADMISSION FEES
Standard: 12 | Reduced fees: Senior citizens (60+): 11 | Students (< 30 years) and
unemployed: 6 | Announced school classes: 0,50 per pupil | Young people (618 years): 1
Children under 6: free of charge | Family pass for 2 adults and their (grand-)children (< 18
years): 22 | On Mondays: 50% discount on all admission fees (except on bank holidays)

GUIDED TOURS
Guided tours for groups: Guided tours in languages other than German: TueFri, 10am9pm and
Sat, 10am8pm. All tours must be announced.

ACCOMPANYING PROGRAMME (EXTRACT)

RE-ACT! HARRY KLEIN GOES KUNSTHALLE Art and Club: 4.5., 8:30-12pm: Visual artists
create projections inspired by the exhibition, Meute live (Hamburg) and Stefanie Raschke
(Harry Klein, Munich) provide a suitable sound till midnight in the cafe area with dance floor.
KH
AFTERWORK every third Wednesday of the month 6:3010pm: 19.4., 17.5., 21.6., 19.7. and
16.8.: Enjoy the exhibition until 10pm and linger on in the CafBarBrasserie Kunsthalle till
late. In addition to the exhibition tickets, a limited number of Afterwork-guided tour tickets in
German can be purchased for 7.

CATALOGUE
To accompany the exhibition, Taschen has published a high quality book with over 400
images. Edited by Thierry-Maxime Loriot, 23, 9 x 34 cm, 472 pages, 59, 99.

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