All Helmut Newton's women

To go through the 10 environments of Helmut Newton Work - the biggest exhibition already made about his work - is to get ready to dive in the vigorous imaginary of the German photographer of 80 years old (40 of career), whose style is one of the most influent in the fashion photograph and image history .

Legenda:Self portrait, 1993

With his wife's curatorship, June Newton - one of the major influence in Helmut Newton's work - 200 photographs devastate the Barbican Gallery, at Barbican Centre. The HN universe is thematically separated - the main rooms are Big Nudes, Fashion and Portraits - it is punctuated by a video-documentary. Newton by June is a making of without much technical concern and reveals the intimacy of a delightful man, seen by his wife. A rare moment, as Newton's great obsession is, the inverse, to see women, or yet, expose them to all kinds of looks.

Accused of retracting them like objects, called misogynous, porno-chic or perverted, the photographer has never been afraid of crossing the frontiers between moral and esthetic and in his way, reinvent concepts as the feminine, the eroticism, sexuality and power . Ironically, one of the strongest points of the exposition is exactly the feminine power: over this man who seem to command them and over the spectator who admires them.

"Saddled" Woman for Vogue Homme, 1976

In Ruth Padel's opinion, if the sado-masochist trend has become a strong fashion style currently, Newton has his merits. Fetishist confessed, stiletto high heels, aren't missing in his images. In 1980, he made an editorial about jewelry in X-ray, "to see how a diamond necklace of $ 3 million dollars was in a radiography". He reveals that, when he took his models to the radiologist, he asked to look trough the machine, a "fascinating image" : the shape of the feminine feet on huge high heels. When exposing his voyeurism to the extreme, he evokes the exhibitionist side of fashion - why won't say the feminine - and it resounds in the deep universes of we all.

Attitude in Laurence Steele's publicity, 1996

HN began at French Vogue, in 1961. From then on, uncountable big brands and publications have already crossed his lens, since they were approved by his strong and powerful style. The squalid or asexual side of fashion keep far from him. Newton is more Cindy Crawford than Kate Moss...

His provocative and powerful eye is one of the precursor in taking fashion out of its dreamy pedestal and mix it in more "dangerous" fields of reality or fantasy. The lesbianchic from YSL, in 1975, or Jerry Hall (ex-Mick Jagger) holding a piece of raw meat on her eye (1979) are pure Newtonian visionary sensitivity. For more than 20 years, he insists that concept is more important than clothes.

Besides that, the photographer hates studios and prefers the streets, hotel rooms, or apparently illicit environments, he also mixes unusual objects like horse saddles, wheel chairs or surgical apparatus, far beyond fashion. According to him : "my favorite photos are the ones which evoke a strong feeling of 'I have already been here before…'" Or yet: "when I face some problem or terror, I pick up my camera and photograph. This helps me… I have photographed my doctors, myself in the mirror of the hospital, like my camera could be a rampart between me and the horror." Helmut as well as Picasso, also affirms: "I hate the good taste. This is the worst that could happen to a creative person ".

The nudes/dressed in pose and background repetition , insinuating that the camera itself could have undressed the models (French Vogue , 1981).		Ambient is everything for Helmut Newton. YSL for French Vogue , 1975

The HN images constantly evoke contradictions - without Manichaeism , but in a provocative way. Real and artificial, feminine and masculine, subject and object, nude and dressed, are just some of them. Therefore, even in fashion, nude women are recurring images and assumed obsession. Men observing women is another… Newton insists in the question: "how do we really see the women?" Definitively, he has already left his answer for the world.

Who commands the scene? The exhibitionist or the voyeur. Photo for Max Smith Men's Fashionwear. 1995

Barbican Gallery - Barbican Centre - Silk St., London EC2. Barbican tube.
Until 08/07/2001

The second floor of the gallery shelters the exposition Jam - art, fashion, music, comics, photograph… - joining Tokyo and London. For more about Jam in June, at LondonLink.