The resting voyeur

A few weeks ago, on a quiet street in Brooklyn's Red Hook neighborhood, a woman ran out of a church to tell people who were taking pictures at the outside that what they were doing was not OK.
"I'll call the diocese," she said. "We have active parishioners in this community who would be very, very upset if they saw this in a magazine."
You could figure out where she came from.
The male model standing in front of a statue that depicted the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary did not exactly take an oath of fidelity to her.
He was dressed in Balenciaga black, his hair was dyed peroxide blonde, and the black makeup around his eyes and pancake white around the rest of his face was starting to run in the late afternoon sun.

The look was punk rock ghoul, and the magazine it was shot for was The Face. The photographer was Steven Klein, who for about three decades was one of the fashion world's greatest provocateurs, a guy whose harsh, fetishistic images in W, Vogue, Harper's Bazaar and Interview made him the 'one of the best-known image architects in the industry.
Mr. Klein has photographed advertising campaigns for Gucci, Saint Laurent, Balmain, Calvin Klein and Dolce & Gabbana and branched out into directing music videos, notably for Lady Gaga and Nicki Minaj. His work has been exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum and at gallery owners Larry Gagosian and Jeffrey Deitch.
"He has an incredible eye and a somewhat perverse sense of beauty that never 'never stray too far one way or the other," Tom Ford wrote in an email. Mr Ford, whose ad campaigns are often photographed by Mr Klein, added: "It creates tension in his photos. They have an edge. They can be slightly shocking, not in an extreme way but in a way that makes you stop and look closely. And he makes you feel at comfortable on set. Even though they are lying naked between two plastic sex dolls."
Mr. Ford was referring to a sci-fi spread for W that Mr. Klein, 57, shot in 2005 that featured the designer presiding over a collection of anatomically correct, life-size toys that cost thousands of dollars and never look no less real than many of the real people who appear in contemporary fashion magazines. These photographs can be reviewed in the 464-page monograph Phaidon will publish later this month.
Almost all stars that can be identified simply by their first name make a appearance (or two or three): Brad, Angelina, Nicole, Kanye, Kim, Scarlett, Naomi, Rihanna and Madonna, who paid tribute to Mr. Klein in Vanity Fair this month about the dozens of photo shoots he they've performed together over the past 17 years, a result, she says, of their "mutual passion for horses, mysticism, high art and raunchy sex".
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Fashion Nov 7, 2022 0 54 Add to Reading List

A few weeks ago, on a quiet street in Brooklyn's Red Hook neighborhood, a woman ran out of a church to tell people who were taking pictures at the outside that what they were doing was not OK.

"I'll call the diocese," she said. "We have active parishioners in this community who would be very, very upset if they saw this in a magazine."

You could figure out where she came from.

The male model standing in front of a statue that depicted the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary did not exactly take an oath of fidelity to her.

He was dressed in Balenciaga black, his hair was dyed peroxide blonde, and the black makeup around his eyes and pancake white around the rest of his face was starting to run in the late afternoon sun.

The look was punk rock ghoul, and the magazine it was shot for was The Face. The photographer was Steven Klein, who for about three decades was one of the fashion world's greatest provocateurs, a guy whose harsh, fetishistic images in W, Vogue, Harper's Bazaar and Interview made him the 'one of the best-known image architects in the industry.

Mr. Klein has photographed advertising campaigns for Gucci, Saint Laurent, Balmain, Calvin Klein and Dolce & Gabbana and branched out into directing music videos, notably for Lady Gaga and Nicki Minaj. His work has been exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum and at gallery owners Larry Gagosian and Jeffrey Deitch.

"He has an incredible eye and a somewhat perverse sense of beauty that never 'never stray too far one way or the other," Tom Ford wrote in an email. Mr Ford, whose ad campaigns are often photographed by Mr Klein, added: "It creates tension in his photos. They have an edge. They can be slightly shocking, not in an extreme way but in a way that makes you stop and look closely. And he makes you feel at comfortable on set. Even though they are lying naked between two plastic sex dolls."

Mr. Ford was referring to a sci-fi spread for W that Mr. Klein, 57, shot in 2005 that featured the designer presiding over a collection of anatomically correct, life-size toys that cost thousands of dollars and never look no less real than many of the real people who appear in contemporary fashion magazines. These photographs can be reviewed in the 464-page monograph Phaidon will publish later this month.

Almost all stars that can be identified simply by their first name make a appearance (or two or three): Brad, Angelina, Nicole, Kanye, Kim, Scarlett, Naomi, Rihanna and Madonna, who paid tribute to Mr. Klein in Vanity Fair this month about the dozens of photo shoots he they've performed together over the past 17 years, a result, she says, of their "mutual passion for horses, mysticism, high art and raunchy sex".

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