Paolo Roversi: Parisian retrospective of the famous fashion photographer

The first Parisian retrospective of Paolo Roversi opened at the Palais Galliera fashion museum. One of the most famous fashion photographers of our time, being at the very center of the industry, shooting stories for the best glossy magazines and advertising campaigns for prominent fashion houses, he always took portraits in which there are no celebrities, no fashion, no clothes – only bodies seen with his camera.

Text: Elena Stafieva

The fact that this exhibition, dedicated to the 50th anniversary of Roversi’s work, opened in the Palais Galliera in Paris seems very logical: born in Ravenna, but living and working in Paris since 1973, he, in fact, began photographing fashion there, that is Paris became the actual homeland for Roversi, a fashion photographer. And now here they show 140 of his photographic works, including never before seen, as well as Polaroids (Roversi is known for his love of 8×10 Polaroid) and his archival lookbooks, magazines, invitations, etc. (for these rarities, special thanks to Sylvie Lecallier, the main curator of the museum’s photo collection and curator of the exhibition). This entire collection, presented for the first time with such completeness, forms the corpus of Paolo Roversi – and this allows us, in turn, to formulate some important things about him.

At the entrance to the exhibition, a large portrait of Natalia Vodianova in some kind of crazy hat looks at us from the far wall, made in his most characteristic manner, which cannot be confused with any other: strictly studio shooting and lighting, slight defocus and vibrating individual color accents on almost black and white background. But Roversi almost never takes portraits of celebrities, nor does he take pictures of himself, his loved ones, or chronicle his life at all. Nor can it be said that he is interested in the synergy that arises between model and dress, as, for example, Irving Penn was interested in it, or in general in any manifestation of personality through and in connection with clothing. Although both clothing and personality are present in his photographs, what interests him most is not even a fashionable look, that is, a certain correspondence of silhouette, styling and the current moment caught and approved by the camera, but a rather ephemeral thing, the definition of which forces us to use clichéd expressions like “ the matter of fashion.”

We are talking about a certain substance associated with the immanent property of fashion – with the way it imparts an extraordinary dimension to the human body and everything put on it, how it pushes and lifts it, changes its position in relation to others. Therefore, all his models look somewhat otherworldly, and therefore his photographs certainly have a certain magnetism. This magnetism, achieved including with the help of light (Roversi likes to work with Mag-Lite flashes), when in his photographs Vodianova’s transparent light eyes glow or Stella Tennant’s clothes dissolve in the air emit a radiance, is emphasized by the virtuoso work of the exhibition’s set designer Anya Marchenko, who made her signature trompe-l’?il in the form of a window in the central hall or a slightly open door, through which a rather otherworldly light also seems to be pouring.

Actually, there is no special fashion in his photographs – that is, there are no clearly identifiable seasonal collections or characteristic silhouettes. In general, his shootings can be dated only by the famous models involved in them, and even then quite relatively, because their faces do not bear clear traces of time. And those fashion brands with which he worked the most – Yohji Yamamoto, Comme des Garcons, that is, those that have a strong vision that does not change from season to season, fit perfectly into this “fashion beyond fashion” aesthetic. At the same time, at this exhibition we see approximately the same number of undressed models as there are models in clothes, and perhaps there are even more bodies without clothes here than in clothes. And this is where another important feature of the photographer Roversi becomes obvious.

It seems that in his numerous photographs with naked models there is a complete lack of seductiveness and attractiveness. It seems that he is not interested in any kind of sex appeal at all. In this, he is as far as possible not only from Helmut Newton and his BDSM goddesses, aggressively striding towards the viewer, but also from Juergen Teller, who is of a completely different kind, but also loves the demonstration of genitals, his own and others, or even from someone who is not fixated on sex at all , although Peter Lindbergh also shot a lot of nude models.

At the exhibition in a separate room is his series of nudes “Nudi”, which he began with a portrait of a naked Inès de la Fressange for Vogue Homme in 1983, and then did as his own non-commercial project, photographing famous and not so famous models for many years, named here only by name, as is customary in the modeling world, in exactly the same way: completely naked, in full growth, looking straight into the camera, under direct full light without shadows, in b/w, reshot on a 20×30 Polaroid. The bodies of the models seem to be completely devoid of any three-dimensionality here, brought to the level of abstraction and, beautifully reflected in large pieces of glass leaning against the opposite wall, as if accidentally forgotten here (another type of trompe-l’?il, another success of the set designer), almost look like spots of light. But at the same time, of course, it is in these photographs, seemingly sterile, that all living things are most manifested: the way these women position their bodies within very specific boundaries, the way they look into the camera, their fragility and vulnerability, all the uniqueness of their bodies, shapes their breasts, their pubic hairline—whatever focuses the viewer’s attention. And of course, in this openness and frontality there is a hundred times more sexuality than in Newton’s naked Amazons.

Such a recognizable manner of Roversi with all its characteristic features could not help but be borrowed and copied. The most typical example is the shooting of Elizaveta Porodina, who has become extremely fashionable in glossy magazines in the last few years, looking in places like an AI work on the theme of “Paolo Roversi”. Predictably, attempts to use this painting with color and light in the era of neural network reproducibility of works of photographic art completely devalue it. But from the walls of the Palais Galliera, unclouded examples of the great master, which have not yet been touched by any neural networks, look at us – and this is also the great value of this exhibition.