Watson’s Walk on the Wild Side

Photographer Albert Watson has always been hard to pigeonhole, but his newest project is a surprise departure even for him — an unabashed romp into kitsch and kink in Vegas.

The Scottish-born Watson has put together a one-man show called Miss Beehayving, running at Hamiltons Gallery London through March 15. Culled from Watson’s forthcoming big book project Shot in Vegas, this exhibition focuses on a single model, a dominatrix and burlesque performer called Breaunna (her online moniker is the show’s title). “She lives in an exotic, erotic world, and that ‘s what fascinated me,” says the photographer.

I once had the pleasure of visiting Watson’s 13,000-square-foot studio in Manhattan’s meat-packing district, which covers several floors and is humongous by New York standards. Throughout the space, prints of Watson’s work were on display and stacked in organized piles, thousands of photographs running the gamut from fashion to celebrities to fine art to journalistic moments. “In 99 percent of art, recognizability is a comfortable factor,” he said at the time. “My recognizability is going to have to be in the diversity.”