Thursday, April 15, 2021

Press release: Dressed for Success –100 Years of Fashion Photography, Press Opening April 29, 2021

Press Contact: The Contemporary Art Insider PR Sofia Bertilsson +46 733 8668 20 [email protected] [email protected] Pressroom Falsterbo Photo Art Museum

Image: ©Julia Hetta

Welcome to the press opening on Thursday 29 April. Please book a slot: 10am, 11am or 1pm. For TV and radio, we also offer the opportunity to book visits on Wednesday 28 April. Please RSVP by noon Monday 26 April to press contact Sofia Bertilsson, +46 733 86 68 20, [email protected].

Sweden’s new photo museum, Falsterbo Photo Art Museum, opens its first exhibition Dressed for Success – 100 Years of Fashion Photography on Saturday 1 May. The opening of the museum is unique with the ongoing Corona Pandemic and it will strengthen the scene of photo art in Europe. Through 120 works and about 40 photographers, its first exhibition reflects on the history of fashion photography over 100 years. The exhibition brings together major international names such as , Steven Klein, Peter Lindbergh, Steven Meisel, Helmut Newton and as well as a

younger generation like David LaChapelle, Julia Hetta and Chen Man. Many of the works are shown in for the first time. All the photographers have been pioneers that pushed and challenged boundaries within the genre. Together with models and fashion designers they opened the door to the identity culture of today, to how we construct and communicate who we are, or aspire to be, through fashion, and reached a wide audience thanks to the fashion magazines. The exhibition is curated by Claes Lindquist, a process that has taken almost 10 years. (Falsterbo Photo Art Museum carefully follows the Swedish Public Health Agency's guidelines.)

Dressed for Success – 100 Years of Fashion Photography The first exhibition at Falsterbo Photo Art Museum, Dressed for Success – 100 Years of Fashion Photography, opens on May 1 and shows a large selection of works from the founders' collection along with loans. It features many of the most important names in the art of fashion photography. Through 120 works it reflects on the history of fashion photography over 100 years, partly from the founders' collection and partly through about 20 loans. In total, about 40 pioneering photographers are shown, who all worked on the border between art and fashion and were instrumental in developing photo art as a genre that overlap popular culture, haute couture, street style and shared identities. Many of the works were originally commissioned by widely circulated fashion magazines, but today photography has become part of the art market. Its wide appeal and the speed with which new ideals and popular culture are communicated through images have given photo art a wide audience and us iconic images of our times.

In the exhibition, we meet photographers who came to develop close collaborations with the models, the influential fashion houses and fashion magazines. Together, they created new ideals in the post-war pop culture, they challenged and provoked, got inspired by surrealism and street photography, but not least by Old Masters and Symbolism. Some models stepped behind the camera like Ellen von Unwerth and today more and more women are taking the medium further, such as Chen Man who replaced the Western models with Chinese or Julia Hetta's sometimes stripped-down aesthetics reminiscent of Zurbarán and art film.

Richard Avedon's work extends beyond pioneering work in fashion photography to strong involvement in the American Civil Rights Movement. Together with James Baldwin’s pen, he explored American identity and politics through his camera lens.

Some of Avedon’s most iconic fashion images such as Dovima with elephants, evening dress by Dior, Cirque d'Hiver, , August 1955 is included in the exhibition together with Helmut Newton's images where the nude women's challenging looks turn established notions of gender roles upside down. Like Yves Saint Laurent, who in 1966 began making tuxedos for women and playing with gender identities, Newton was a master at provocative twists on expected gender roles.

When Peter Lindbergh was commissioned in 1989 to photograph a for the new decade, he instead chose to photograph a group of models without make-up and with natural hair. It became a move that came to redefine fashion photography but also introduced the that came to dominate the 1990s; , , , and Cindy Crawford.

The collaboration with the fashion scene was, and is, close for these photographers and we also meet the models Lisa Fonssagrives, , Veruschka, Lisa Taylor and Gunilla Bergström who were involved in defining their time, as well as stars from the film and music scene like Nicole Kidman and Lil 'Kim.

Of course, the fashion houses and designers also play a major role and Dior, Yves Saint-Laurent, Versace, lssey Miyake, Alexander McQueen and many more are featured in the photographers’ work. Today, not only fashion photography has taken the step into art museums around the world, fashion is shown in museums with exhibitions such as Martin Margiela at Artipelag, Sweden, 2019 and fêted at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

In Dressed for Success, we see works from George Hoyningen-Huyne's historically groundbreaking photographs from the 1920s to today's revolutionary names such as David LaChapelle, whose images challenge ideas about consumption and examine contemporary extreme Hollywood ideals, inspired by Old Masters. Many of the iconic photographs by Richard Avedon, Steven Klein, Peter Lindbergh, Steven Meisel, Melvin Sokolsky and others have not been shown before in Sweden and the Nordic countries. The exhibition, which has taken almost 10 years to assemble and to negotiate additional loans, is curated by Claes Lindquist. Exhibition period: May 1 – September 12 , 2021.

Photographers in selection: Richard Avedon, Lillian Bassman, Patrick Demarchelier, Mike Figgis, Julia Hetta, George Hoyningen-Huynes, Steven Klein, David LaChapelle, Peter Lindbergh, Chen Man, Steven Meisel, Sara Moon, Helmut Newton, Irving Penn, Herb Ritts, Melvin Sokolsky, Ellen von Unwerth et al.

Falsterbo Photo Art Museum Strandbadsvägen 30, 239 42 Falsterbo https://falsterbophoto.com Instagram: @falsterbophotoartmuseum #falsterbophoto Opening hours: Tuesday - Sunday at 11.00 - 19.00. Closed Monday.

Press contact: Sofia Bertilsson, +46 733 86 68 20, [email protected] Pressroom: https://www.thecontemporaryartinsider.com/pressroom Please contact Claes Lindquist for more information about the museum, +46 70 585 18 67

For Editors About Falsterbo Photo Art Museum – A New Photo Museum in Europe Falsterbo Photo Art Museum is a new private photo museum located next to one of Sweden's most beautiful beaches, 25 minutes from Malmö and the Öresund Bridge. The 1500 m2 building has exhibition spaces for the museum's collection and temporary shows, shop and restaurant Bistro Perspektiv managed by reputable restaurateurs. Together with its exclusive exhibitions, unique environment, restaurant and shop, Falsterbo Photo Art Museum creates a new destination in the Greater Copenhagen region that can attract tourists from all over Sweden as well as the rest of the world. The museum's collections consist of about 450 original works and vintage prints, by some of the world's most famous photographers with names such as Robert Mapplethorpe, Irving Penn and Richard Avedon. The museum has initiated a collaboration with Malmö University, Faculty of Art, Culture and Communication. An visit to Falsterbo Photo Art Museum suits a wide audience and can be combined with a visit to Falsterbo's unique nature and with Bistro Perspektiv that offers lunch, dinner and coffee. Membership that is valid for one year costs SEK 495 and gives free admission to the Museum, 10% discount on food at Bistro Perspektiv (not drinks), 15% discount on all products in the shop, 25% discount on lectures on photography and photographers.

About the collectors behind Falsterbo Photo Art Museum Behind the private museum are Malmö based Claes and Christina Lindquist, who open their collection to the public and develop a modern photo museum and unique destination in the Greater Copenhagen region. After a period of searching for a suitable venue to show world-class photography, they have now established the museum in the resort town Falsterbo. The private photo collection of international caliber has been built up over 15 years and forms the basis for the museum's exhibitions.

About Bistro & Café In connection with Falsterbo Photo Art Museum, the renowned restaurateurs Peter and Frida Ringström, together with Monica Lusth and Pär Ringström, will open Bistro Perspektiv, café & Nordic bistro with influences from Asia. The restaurant is located on the ground floor with lovely views of the pines and dunes and also has a large outdoor terrace.