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Richard Avedon's photos prove he's the bastion of fashion (Part 1 in a DIA series)
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Visitors to the Detroit Institute of Arts will have an eye-opening experience as they view the Richard Avedon photography exhibit until January 17. The collection has been on display since October 18.
The bastion of fashion photography has a few surprises for museum visitors as his work unveils the world of couture - warts and all. Well, moles, to be exact.
Who knew that Elizabeth Taylor's mole on the right cheek has three hairs coming out of it? Shot in the 1960s, this is disturbingly evident during camera close-ups. Nearby visitors who marveled at my weekend discovery said they will never see the glamorous, violet-color eyed Taylor the same again.
You're welcome. :)
Moles play a prominent role in Avedon's work. As do feet, hands and other details of the theatrical fashion world. (Fashion models apparently have very large feet.)
See odd props - often purposely, incongruously placed. Strange people posed with Beautiful People. Celebrities suddenly on the scene (Buster Keaton in a full, feathered Indian headdress?) and black and white dioramas representing vignettes of each era.
And, everyone smoked through at least the 1940s and 50s. Remember?
OK, so what else can you learn from the late photographer's exhibit? That models of the 1940s - 1970s wore much lower heels than those in photos of the 1990s. Of course, the women captured on film were already of Sequoia height, but their feet probably felt a lot better at the end of a day of shooting, too.
Some females' eyebrows were negotiable. Case in point: Dovima the model, and a favorite of the Avedon lens. Her own brows were whited out in favor of something much more stark and weird. Sometimes she had alien peaks. Sometimes, painted streaks that ended on her forehead, pointing at her hairline. Or, twin blobs just short of a unibrow. The whole eyebrow escapade is reminiscent of the moving mole worn by Richard Lewis as Prince John in Mel Brooks' movie, "Robin Hood: Men in Tights."
Kind of like a "Where's Waldo," in classic photography.
Avedon's male models were mere props to the females - and even the designer clothes. But they were recurring props.
An Avedon favorite, Englishman Robin Tattersall, ironically further beautified the world by becoming a plastic surgeon, establishing the Bougainvilla Clinic in the British Virgin Islands and served as Government Surgeon for the British Virgin Islands and Anguilla. During the 1980s and 1990s, he was also part of a British VI sailing team in the Olympics in Los Angeles and Barcelona.
Expect to see oldies like Ray Boulder. And Gardner McKay, who later went on to be type-cast as an expert sailor in TV's "Adventures in Paradise," as well as develop a successful writing career.
A transition to color photos occurred in the 1990s, but Avedon also transitioned the look of his models. Going from the elegance of designer starlets to the strange poses of abuse captured on film, Avedon's models appear with painted cheek bruises, blackened eyes and other signs of physical distress.
His 1995 series called In Memory of the Late Mr. and Mrs. Comfort is a bizarre nightmare-like sequence of photos with a model and skeleton in various stages of dress, skipping through scenes with flying money, and other surreal whizzing props.
It's a far departure from an earlier 8-photo series scripted by, and starring, Mike Nichols with Suzy Parker, called Fashion Goes Tabloid. The humorous treatise parallels a whirlwind traipse by a fictitious Hollywood couple - ala Liz and Dick, real-life friends of Nichols - as they are hounded by paparazzi, culminating in a restaurant spat and hospital release, clearly depicting the female's bandaged slit wrists.
Oh, how we recall those days.
This exhibit experiments with a new venture into cell phone audio touring. Visitors use their own phones to dial a number and hear specifics about the collection, a potentially costly yet still innovative idea.
The good news with the Avedon exhibit? His models all shaved; no stubbly men and no armpit-haired, shaggy-legged women. So, feel free to eat lunch before you view the photos.
You're welcome. :)
See Part 2 of the DIA series:
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