Alistair O'neill Fashion Photography Communication Criticism and Curation

Marketa Uhlirova: What was on your mind as you began to conceptualise this exhibition?

Alistair O'Neill: From the commencement it was important to think through what had already been staged and published nearly Bourdin. Information technology has been eleven years since the Five&A staged the first UK survey of Bourdin's work and since then, an appreciation of his piece of work has grown, equally has its position within contemporary visual culture. In 2003, Bourdin was even so regarded as a photographer's photographer, or a photographer with cult interest but now his work is seen in a wider context, partly due to how information technology is celebrated in an expanded field through books and exhibitions, but too due to how style photography at present functions in a digitally driven paradigm culture.

MU: Was information technology a challenge to nowadays Bourdin's work differently from all the previous exhibitions and book projects dedicated to him?

AON: The main reason for me wanting to get involved in this exhibition was the hazard to reconsider Bourdin in the light of new textile recently released by the estate, allowing the states to offer a new account. Usually this kind of project is staged in order to resurrect the profile of a artistic, or to build a reputation. In terms of Bourdin, by staging this exhibition nosotros are just confirming a growing interest in his work, which is axiomatic in terms of the response we have had to the exhibition and the range of contributors who wanted to write for the catalogue. Y'all don't usually get this kind of reaction and I take this to exist a testament to the way people invested in photography and pic nonetheless regard Bourdin.

MU: Don't you remember information technology'south ironic there is this hunger to revisit Bourdin'southward work given that he himself wasn't and so bully for his work to be taken out of the context of the magazine?

AON: There certainly exists an thought that Bourdin didn't care for the legacy of his work. I also believed this – it was a very powerful narrative to rediscovering his work in the 90s. I remember the idea being raised in the BBC documentary aired in 1996, and in the Bourdin special effect of Dutch magazine in 1997. Simply let me effort to unpack this notion a little. I exercise recall it is true that Bourdin wasn't motivated in seeing his work in a one-human being show or monograph terms during his lifetime, in contrast to the likes of Newton or Avedon, say. Merely the thought that he didn't care for his archive I now think is untrue. Yes, he might not have looked afterwards it according to museum conservation standards, but and then, very few photographers did at that time. But he did care nearly the work begetting relevant to a future generation of creatives. This is a different arroyo to legacy, as it isn't bound to a self-imposed form of condition or recognition. Bourdin was but not interested in being known as a named lensman, he was far also private a man for that and his interests lay elsewhere.  I certainly do hope that the exhibition can help shed the thought of him not caring about his work.

MU: This self-effacing stance is quite incredible for someone with such a singular artful – someone creating such powerful imagery. And yet all this doesn't mean Bourdin wasn't aggressive or that he wasn't consciously engaging in a kind of practice he would consider having artistic value…

AON: I think that back then, the parameters of what constituted art photography, certainly within a museum or gallery context, were much more limited. Bourdin chose to ignore this equally he had decided to work within a commercial medium that actually resonated in the 70s in a mode that was perhaps more progressive than hanging photographs on walls. Bourdin was an artist outset before beingness known as a style photographer and was lauded in his first career equally a protégé of Human Ray. In this, he understood the power and affect of commercial imagery, as something that tin operate alongside a personal portfolio of work.

MU: The exhibition has a whole room dedicated to Bourdin's films, and more than. Some of them we already know from an edit SHOWstudio made back in 2003, in conjunction with the V&A evidence. But you returned to the original reels, didn't you? What is the nature of these films every bit far equally you run into them?

AON: The films are spoken of equally proto fashion films, in terms of how nosotros now categorise commercial moving imagery employed by fashion brands and fashion content providers online. However, Bourdin didn't brand these films for commercial ends, they may take been made aslope a shoot for photographic editorial or advertising (equally is the case with then many manner campaigns today), but they were for Bourdin'due south own interests and non for broadcast or for any kind of proceeds.

MU: Tell me more about how yous meet the films inside the larger trunk of Bourdin's work.

AON: The films can exist divided into two types: 1, which is rapid edit, equanimous 'in camera', without whatever post-product splicing. They operate every bit a kind of stream of consciousness and connect to techniques of filmmaking rehearsed by American underground pic in the 1960s. Equally an approach information technology is complimentary-class but likewise highly specific to Bourdin'southward viewpoint. The second is really much slower in class, and lingers on an established pose, intended to exist shot for a still paradigm, but which has a repetitive sense of movement in it. The shot is long and unchanging and fixed in point, and information technology revels in the slow, undulating form of movement. While the former is linked to a documentary tradition, the latter is studio, process-driven observation. Both help to inform an understanding of Bourdin's photographs.

MU: Aye, and since you mentioned the American clandestine in instance of the former, I would say that many of the elements present in the latter – the exploration of the human activity of posing for the camera, the tension betwixt photographic stillness and filmic motility, the interest in process and repetition – have a Warholian resonance nigh them, even though they are clearly much less programmatic and have a different aesthetic. But in that location is another bespeak in which Bourdin's films remind me of Warhol'southward (and Jack Smith'due south for that matter) – it is that interest in picture as a device of slow scrutiny and what you just chosen process-driven ascertainment. I similar the way he repurposed film and filmmaking practice for his own agenda, with an uncertain event. How much do we know of his motivations to create these bits of moving image footage?

AON: We don't, sadly. We do know that he used 16mm, 8mm, Super 8 and Polavision. Then although working in a commercial capacity as a professional lensman, he tended to prefer using amateur filmmaking engineering science. This is of notation, to me in any instance.

Guy Bourdin: Image Maker is on at Somerset Firm, 27 Nov 2014 – xv March 2015. The exhibition is curated by Alistair O'Neill and Shelly Verthime.

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