Photographer Gian Paolo Barbieri, excellence in fashion and costume photography, on show at the House of Lucie in Ostuni – Carlo Franza’s blog

To the master who marked the history of contemporary fashion and costume photography, House of Lucie Ostuni And The Lucie Awards dedicate “Gian Paolo Barbieri: “Beyond Fashion” retrospective created in collaboration with the Gian Paolo Barbieri Foundation and the 29 Arts In Progress gallery in Milan, from 5 July to 31 August 2024.

Alongside many of Barbieri’s masterpieces, some recently discovered photographs are exhibited, ranging from the 1960s to the 2000s, the result of in-depth research conducted within the Artist’s archive. “It is our duty to leave future generations something that can be useful to them in undertaking this increasingly difficult and complex profession,” wrote Gian Paolo Barbieri.

The exhibition itinerary offers the public innovative images in terms of settings and styling, the fruit of the unmistakable genius of the Artist: an ironic and at the same time cultured, refined and provocative photography, full of references to the history of art, eclectic outdoor sets in exotic locations and cinematographic citations, echoes of the youthful experience in Cinecittà, in Rome.

From his point of view, in fact, fashion without art is naked and empty. And here the women in the images on display free themselves for the occasion from the most canonical poses of fashion photography, to become spokespersons of a new unconventional elegance that reveals its most casual and sensual side. Gian Paolo Barbieri fascinates, disconcerts, touches the heart and mind of the viewer. And this is also the function of photography and, more broadly, of art.

Gian Paolo Barbieri has managed to give a unique face to Italian fashion, which no one had yet been able to imagine, becoming an accomplice and companion of those stylists that the advent of Made in Italy would transform into protagonists of a new era of costume and fashion. At their side, he interprets the most beautiful season of that new effervescence. In The exhibition features intimate and candid shots of models and celebrities such as Veruschka, Naomi Campbell, Marpessa, Eva Herzigova, and Monica Bellucci, Mina, Isabella Rossellini, alternated with iconic photographs (including Audrey Hepburn from 1969) that Barbieri conceived for some of the most legendary advertising campaigns for Italian and international fashion brands such as Versace, Ferrè, Vivienne Westwood, Dolce & Gabbana, Valentino and Armani. But the exhibition also offers the public innovative images in terms of settings and styling, the result of the unmistakable genius of the Artist: an ironic and at the same time cultured, refined and provocative photography, full of references to the history of art, of eclectic outdoor sets in exotic locations and cinematic quotes, echoes of the youthful experience in Cinecittà, in Rome. Barbieri – winner in 2018 of the Lucie Award as Best International Fashion Photographer (Outstanding Achievement in Fashion) – is a precious photographer, always: in the studied and also calibrated lights, through the ancient familiarity with cinema and theater, in the makeup, in the immobile suspension of the poses. Gian Paolo Barbieri fascinates, disconcerts, touches the heart and mind of the viewer. And this is also the function of photography and, more broadly, of art.

Gian Paolo Barbieri (Milan, 1935). For over 60 years, Gian Paolo Barbieri has been one of the most influential international photographers in the fashion field. Collaborating on the creation of the greatest advertising campaigns for international brands such as Valentino, Gianni Versace, Gianfranco Ferré, Giorgio Armani, Bulgari, Yves Saint Laurent, Dolce & Gabbana, Vivienne Westwood and many others, Barbieri’s work has filled, with his iconic and timeless shots, for entire decades, the pages of Vogue Italia, Vogue Paris, Vogue America, L’Officiel, GQ and Vanity Fair. Ranked as one of the best fourteen fashion photographers by Stern magazine, Barbieri is an artist increasingly present in prestigious museum collections, including the Victoria and Albert Museum and the National Portrait Gallery in London, the Kunstforum in Vienna, the MAMM in Moscow and the Erarta Contemporary Art Museum in St. Petersburg, the Musée du quai Branly in Paris and the Nicola Erni Collection in Switzerland. His images have been collected in many authoritative publications such as Artificial (1982), Gian Paolo Barbieri (1988), Tahiti Tattoos (1989), Madagascar (1997), Equator (1999), A History of Fashion (2001), Dark Memories (2013), Skin (2015) and Fiori della mia Vita (2016). In 2018 Gian Paolo Barbieri received the 2018 Lucie Award for Best International Fashion Photographer (Outstanding Achievement in Fashion) in New York. In June 2022, ‘L’uomo e la bellezza’, the first documentary film made on the work and life of the Artist, won the audience award in the Biografilm Art & Music section of the Biografilm Festival 2022 in Bologna. The film is distributed in cinemas in Italy from 2022 and in streaming on Sky and Now. House of Lucie House of Lucie is a contemporary photography space that presents temporary exhibitions, conferences, workshops and events. House of Lucie was founded in 2016 by Hossein Farmani as a contemporary photography space with the mission of exhibiting the extraordinary work of the Lucie Awards winners and to continue his passion for discovering, collecting and sharing the photographic work of local and international talents. The space also hosts the countless winners of photography competitions and international awards organized in different countries of the world (USA, China, Japan, France, …) by Lucie Foundation to support the work of professional, amateur and student photographers.

Carlo Franza