Customer Reviews

Guy Bourdin

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'm a big fan of the fashion stuff Bourdin shot in the seventies & eighties, especially his editorial work for French Vogue (there's never been a really good collection of this).
This book covers his career from the start to the early eighties but obviously not comprehensively given the size. While others may be interested in his earlier work (photos of Man Ray's studio etc.), I'm not. The latter half of the book gets into some of his later fashion photography that really made him famous, but only gives a taste of that part of his career.
It's not a bad book - but like I said it's an abbreviated peek at his whole career and I was really after something on his later fashion work.

Content is sensational but... being a photograph book, I just found it to be too small. Maybe in the future, book's dimensions could be stated within its description.

Really liked this book. It is not for the faint, it is raw and in your face.

The genius of Bourdin was that he lived outside of the cutting edge. This is applicable to all humans because there are so many who don't care about the cutting edge but then there are always those who are running to that edge trying to stay with the trend no matter what it is, then of course there are voyeurs like Bourdin who live outside of it with a certain timelessness. In contrast designers in fashion create the line where the edge is and everyone tries to plant a flag somewhere around there so they can belong. I think Bourdin really understood this concept. He especially illuminates this viewpoint by the amount of reality he injects into such a fairy tale world of beauty.

To press that point I enjoyed the contradiction of his work that really went the wrong way because one of his main motifs was death accompanied by extreme youthful ideals, which is the quintessence of life. His pictures really do their best to shovel reality onto the viewer--to drive a little uneasiness into your routine.