Since her first photographs in the late 1970s, Bettina Rheims has defied the predictable. From her series on Pigalle strippers (1980) to her cycle on the life of Jesus in I.N.R.I. (1998), from Chanel advertisements to Gender Studies (2011), her work has shaken traditional iconography and pushed restlessly at the breaking point between two great human preoccupations: beauty and imperfection.
This retrospective by Rheims features more than 300 photographs from 35 years of bold, often challenging photography. Personally selected and curated by Rheims, the collection includes such renowned series as Chambre Close, Héroïnes and Rose, c'est Paris. The retrospective, which includes both commercial work and artistic series, impresses with every turn of the page, both through the power of each image and the exciting variety of Rheims' subjects and aesthetic. Focusing as much on anonymous subjects on the street as on celebrities from around the world, including Kate Moss, Madonna, Monica Bellucci, Claudia Schiffer and Naomi Campbell, the book shows Rheim's particular interest in female vulnerability and strength and in the magical encounter between model and artist that subverts codes of so-called eroticism to build a new pictorial system for femininity.
Specifications
Title: Bettina Rheims
Publisher: Taschen
Size: 214 x 274 mm
Size: 452 pages
Weight: 2.65 kilograms
Language: English
Material: Hardcover
ISBN: 9783836568876
