An influential Guy
Obviously not my work, but the work of Mr Guy Bourdin. (Refs for images: Top, middle, bottom). His fetishistic images tend to use legs and shoes and tights and made-up women alot, and often look like fashion shoots or advertising images. Other images look like movie scenes. Bourdin also loved the draw and paint, but photography, rather than being to ‘take a photo, was the way he ‘realized images’ from his mind. He revolutionised the use of colour in an era, in France, when mono imagery was predominant. He inspired Cindy Sherman, an artist who is frequently mentioned by viewers of my own work.
His images are a strange debatable mix of references to both feminine submission and to perhaps a feminist outcry. One image may show a woman throwing clothes at a man’s head or crushing his hand with her shoe as he reaches for his pistol; another may compartmentalise the woman’s body by having several stilettoed legs arranged like the petals of a flower. Another has a woman half hiding underneath a bed with only her bottom and stockings visible.
Bourdin’s work is inspirational to me because of its use of surrealism; hyperbolic airbrushed skin; a sense of parody of the consumerism and of the American Dream; its display of feminine accoutrements whether than is to satire gender or endorse it, and it occasional Nabokovian overtones as in the main middle image pictured.
I became aware of Bourdin’s work at Art A-Level and I feel he has been a subconscious influence in some of my work, for example The Deaths and the faceless Fragile
Posted in Inspirations - References to other artists on April 11th, 2007 | 13 Comments | Tweet This!
4:15 pm on April 11th, 2007
Hello! I just watched your BBC interview on youtube. Congratulations! I find your work to be truly inspiring and fascinating. It’s refreshing to see such talent. Also, congratulations on your gallery exhibition, you certainly earned the publicity. Loved your tribute to Guy Bourdin. Wonderful image. Anyway, that’s about it for now, take care!
Lauren Peralta
4:19 pm on April 11th, 2007
thanks Lauren!!
9:12 pm on April 11th, 2007
I think that you’ll find that a lot of Bourdin’s stuff is fashion photography for a shoe company?? I’ll check it out, but his images have always struck me as being a perfect expression of art and the commercial fashion industry coming together and delivering something truly special… a great source of inspirational material also.
Did your book include a collection of his almost abstract polaroids?
9:15 pm on April 11th, 2007
This is a great site here http://guybourdin.org/gallery/ and if you check out his bio you will see his extensive fashion photography experience – including a lot of work for vogue…
The Polaroids pictured here aren’t the ones I was referring to in my comments above.
6:04 am on April 12th, 2007
Well said, Miss Aniela. And take a moment to check out Steve Hiett. Photography in Paris was really buzzing in the seventies!
Next week I’ll be catching up with three-and-a-half months of Anielas, during my trip to France for the MipTV television program market. (Yes, here in the UAE Flickr is still blocked!)
All the best,
Malcolm in Abu Dhabi
10:01 am on April 12th, 2007
Saw your tribute briefly before you changed the privacy level on it and thought it was great. Had to imagine how many ten second dashes it must have taken to get it right given how difficult it is to know exactly how it looks camera-side.
5:30 pm on April 12th, 2007
@ Nico – only about 6 ten second dashes…
@ michael D – not sure which Polaroids these r??
thanks @ all.
4:25 pm on April 18th, 2007
Oh God. This is some of the most trite, over intellectualised attempts at justifying crap photography and soft core porn i’ve ever seen. If you’re going to do this sort of stuff at least commit to getting your baps out and do a suicidegirls shoot.
There’s absolutely nowt radical about taking your clothes off and waffling on feminism. Germaine Greer did it all in the 60s love.
Why not just film yourself getting jiggy with it and charge visitors to your site for the privilege?
It’s a bit more honest than all this faux intellectual, chin stroking erotica. Of course, they lap this sort of gash up in Brighton don’t they?
5:05 pm on April 18th, 2007
Fuck off
5:08 pm on April 18th, 2007
(i think that nicely sums up what i feel your opinion)
Germaine Greer did what? Brought up lots of relevant points about society and genderisation? And that’s something you can bring out like a party piece and put away again? I think not!
wah…. can’t be bothered talking sense to a nonsensical twat.
5:19 pm on April 18th, 2007
I sorry for my son’s outburst, he is just a twat really!
10:39 am on April 22nd, 2007
whoops sorry I spammed Chris’s reply! Oh dear.
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