Fashion Photography in the Art World
The medium of fashion photography has always struggled to make a place for itself in the art world, although this is a topic that has been touched on a lot throughout history. An aspect that was very central to the elevation of fashion photography as an art form is the fact that it began being exhibited in museums and galleries. This makes the hierarchy present in the fashion photography world very visible, placing museums at the very top, as the most valuable places for image exhibition. Throughout history, fashion photographs have been presented in magazines, books, and galleries, but it hasn’t been until recent years that the Internet has become a new place for them to be exposed to the public.
In early 2002, an exhibition titled Chic Clicks was held at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, and at the Foto Museum in Winterthur, Switzerland shortly after. Focused on the continuous debate amongst art professionals about whether fashion photography deserves to be classified as fine art and is worthy of being displayed in museums and galleries, and focusing on the recent mass-production of images that came with the digital age, the exhibition featured forty contemporary and international fashion photographers, showing both their commercial and their personal projects next to one another in order to compare and contrast. 2002 is an interesting year to look at in this context, as it is perceived as an era of contemporary art, but was still lacking many platforms available to people today, and artists especially: platforms such as the internet and social media. Chic Clicks found its purpose in the changing nature of Fashion Photography from its origins and what was considered the “golden age”, when masters such as Avedon, Irving Penn, or Diane Arbus were working: “The concept for Chic Clicksaddresses both the traditional division and the newly distinguished proximity between fashion and fine art photography”[1].
Richard Avedon, one of the biggest names in fashion photographic history once said: “Fashion is the f-word… the dirtiest word in the eyes of the art world”. Of course, he didn’t hold this belief for the entirety of his career, as his work for fashion editorials is what he is most remembered for, but this doesn’t mean it is not still a highly predominant topic in the art world, with many specialists still skeptical about whether this medium deserves a place in it.
Some believe that in order for Fashion Photography to be appreciated at the level of fine art, it needs to be exhibited at the same level, in museums and galleries: “for fashion photography to have a real place in the art world — and to be more than a pop cultural placeholder — viewers need to judge these pictures with as much rigor as is applied to painting and sculpture”[2]. In the past few decades, several institutions have held exhibitions addressing this phenomenon, including the Getty in 2018, Paris’ Gagosian Gallery in 2014, Miami’s Art Photo Expo in 2008, or the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston with the Chic Clicks exhibition
The guest curator of the exhibition was Dr. Ulrich Lehman, senior lecturer at the Kent Institute of Art and Design, and it included over 240 photographs by forty contemporary photographers. Some videos were also included as new, more modern works by these photographers. The exhibition was set up with one floor dedicated to personal works and another floor dedicated to commercial fashion works by the same photographers, to show the relationship and barely existent difference between these two ‘types’ of photography: “As the art world grows more commercialized, fashion embraces it more passionately. Personal work can feed magazine work”.[3] It was received with mixed reviews, some commenting on the fact that debating whether something is art is one of the most outdated questions one could ask, and some saying that the exhibition was mistaken in keeping personal and commercial works separated, when the show was about their relationship.[4]But there was still a wide acceptance of the fact that fashion photography has become a medium for artistic expression, highly due to the fact that it could be exhibited in spaces at the same level as any other type of art.
An interesting aspect about a time such as 2002, when this exhibition was taking place, was that it was the beginning of a digital era, the emergence of digital photography and digital photo-retouching techniques. “Liberal employment of cutting-edge digital techniques in the pursuit of beauty raises a whole new debate about (contemporary fashion photographs)’s status as art photography. Programs such as Photoshop and in-camera effects made it really easy for images to be altered, therefore steering away from reality, which is what made photography relevant as an art form in the first place. What has changed since 2002 is that this possibility of mass-production of images has made authenticity and authorship more important than ever, with the photographer and their personal style becoming the most important factor, and therefore moving away from just wanting to represent idealized bodies, glamour, and luxury. As the exhibition catalogue states, “The recognition of a specific author, or of a particular visual language, can give fashion photography the aura of art”[5]. Fashion magazines and businesses will partner with photographers with a similar vision as them, and with similar values. This has given rise to a new kind of collaboration between artist, businesses, and publications.
[1]Aufray, Fred, and Ulrich Lehmann. Chic Clicks: Creativity and Commerce in Contemporary Fashion Photography. Boston: Institute of Contemporary Art in Collaboration with Hatje Cantz, 2002, T5.
[2]Keats, Jonathon. “Fashion Photography As Art? Helmut Newton and Mario Testino Head To The Getty (And They Deserve It).” Forbes. August 03, 2018. Accessed January 18, 2019. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathonkeats/2018/08/02/fashion-photography-getty/#409940644d9b.
[3]Goldberg, Vicki. “ART/ARCHITECTURE; To Sell Itself, Fashion Turns to an …” February 10, 2002. Accessed January 10, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/10/arts/art-architecture-to-sell-itself-fashion-turns-to-an-uneasy-realism.html.
[4]Goldberg, Vicki. “ART/ARCHITECTURE; To Sell Itself, Fashion Turns to an …” February 10, 2002. Accessed January 10, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/10/arts/art-architecture-to-sell-itself-fashion-turns-to-an-uneasy-realism.html.
[5]Aufray, Fred, and Ulrich Lehmann. Chic Clicks: Creativity and Commerce in Contemporary Fashion Photography. Boston: Institute of Contemporary Art in Collaboration with Hatje Cantz, 2002, T23.
