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| © Bettina Rheims, courtesy galerie Jerome de Noirmont, Paris |
| Rose McGowan, June 2005, Paris, France. Click photo for more images. |
Schirmer/Mosel/D.A.P; 134 pages; 53 color photographs; $50
Bettina Rheims's photography has never been reliably categorized. The work falls between comfortable genres: portraiture and documentary, commercial and personal, exploitative and sympathetic, erotic and hilarious.
Her previous books, from Female Trouble (1989) to Chambre Close (1992) to Shanghai (2003) are brilliant mashups of fact and fiction. "In the end, as my old master Helmut Newton used to say, there are two kinds of pictures," says Rheims, "the good ones and the bad ones." Her latest book, Heroïnes, brilliantly mixes fashion and skin by depicting actresses and models in couture and nude, in light that is at once painterly and uncompromisingly harsh.
"Even before I think about camera format, or black and white versus color, I ask myself, 'What kind of skin do I want to represent?" she says. "Here, I wanted to capture raw skin, with veins and scars -- the skin of pain and experience." In an age when most celebrities demand to be seen only in their airbrushed glory, Rheims's subjects allow her to redefine the very idea of beauty, and the result is something absolutely original.
"These images are about women today," the photographer says. "It is about being able to assume one's femininity as well as one's strength."
-David Schonauer
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