In my
presentation I would like to tell you about an amazing woman whose exhibition
we can currently see in Warsaw.
65 years ago
her father took part in an unsuccessful assassination on Hitler, which was the
reason why she was called “the daughter of a murderer”. Despite her severe
childhood, she managed to create her own image as a mysterious girl from the
East. She was friends and worked with such great artists as Salvador Dali, Andy
Warhol, Michelangelo Antonioni or Richard Avedon, who spoke about her with awe.
“She is the most beautiful woman in this world. There is no one like her. She was able to find herself.” Vera
Lehndorff, known as Veruschka, “the face of the sixties”, the first German
supermodel, who became a precursor of body-painting.
Veruschka by Franco Rubartelli, Las Vegas, 1967
Veruschka by Richard Avedon, New York, 1967
Her first
contact with art was in 1963, when she worked with Salvador Dali on a
performance in which she was a living sculpture covered with shaving foam.
However, the greatest fame brought her the role in the Michelangelo Antonioni’s
movie “Blow up” from 1966, which is called one of the sexiest scenes in the
history of cinematography.
At the turn of
the 60ties and 70ties she met Holger Trülzsch, the photographer with whom
she started the series of artworks that connected photography and painting. She
swapped fashionable clothes for paint and became one of the first contemporary
body-painting artists.
In her staged sessions Vera perversely chooses
backgrounds that arouse discomfort in viewers. In her opinion it shows the
internal state of a posing model that is mercilessly treated as a life hanger
for clothes. Her camouflage is so perfect that it is sometimes hard to see the
outline of a silhouette or to extract the face. Veruschka challenges the
viewers. They need to think, make effort to see and understand her art. It
takes a while to spot her on the stage. Vera’s photographs are not only linked
to models as plastic items, but also a comment for women invisibility in a
public space, for example in Africa where she makes special sessions.
“Behind the Appearances” is the first exhibition of
the couple Vera & Holger. You can see it in the Spectra Art Space
(Bobrowiecka 6 street) till 30th November.
What do you think about Veruschka’s photographs?
Images:
1. http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/74/92/94/749294e0478ca3e50933e3f3594fee53.jpg
2. http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/06/4a/6b/064a6b9a383c868d2f5eabe686a4b5db.jpg
3. http://www.fotopolis.pl/media/fotki/07-lehndorff--trulzsch-sirius-ii-1986.jpg
4. http://magazynszum.pl/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/SZUM-20140929-17-04.jpg
Comments
Regarding the subject of invisibility - I would like to share with you work of Liu Bolin, a Chinese artist who focuses on integrating fully with the backgrounds of his photos: http://www.galerieparisbeijing.com/artists/liubolin/works/hiding_in_the_city/ These photos are just amazing!
Her photography seems to be very interesting - beautiful colors combined with original themes and stories. I think watching her works in real life - during an exhibition will be a great experience.
However I'll do my best.
Firstly, I couldn't get what do you mean by art of disappearing and I was going to write some stupid comment about using photoshop and playing with opacity. After I accidentialy opened bigger photo I realized that It's not photoshopped!
Well I really like it and if I wouldn't be that lazy I would visit this exhibition.
By the way: I still prefer photographs of Veruschka over Veruschka’s photographs :)
I am not sure if I have ever seen a bodypainting as an art. I really like the idea with camouflage, I had a problem to find her in the first picture :) Well done :D
I'm ondly wondering why did she want to hide, when she was so pretty? :) I think it was a pleasure to her to model, pose, to be in front of camera. I know that at this bodypainting photos she still is on the picture but she is no longer visible - but even though people still are looking for her at those photographs, so maybe that was a point :D
ambitious person. I was on the exhibition in warsaw and it made big impression on me.
There were presented huge prints in great quality. I think that only by watching the exhibition you can appreciate the class of presented photographs from Holger Trulzsch.
Great that at the exhibition opening showed up Veruschka herself captured on the photos.
All exhibition was presented very good in the office on bobrowiecka street. Pretty cool that someone from corpo invests in art in the building besides the exhibition.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0mDpgdnQj_M/US7cBAjHN8I/AAAAAAAABS8/u4q6rMqqrPE/s1600/vera3.jpg
In my opinion, the colors are just magical :)
In this YT video they are using projector. It is now very popular method to capture outstanding photographs. I even try it once. If you have projector and a white wall you can also try it at home. However, Vera and Holder did not use projector. For every image they created set design.
So how was Vera in real life? :) I envy you that you met her!
Wow, Liu Bolin’s art is really impressive! In some pictures it is very hard to find a person!
Paulina great person, and verry good work of him.
I think that all what Verushka does it’ s great and unique. My favourite is Avedon’s work. I like all what he did, all his photography is amazing. She is enigmatic and mysterious on his photos.
She’s unique painter. I’m fascinted of his bodyoainting. She creates chameleons, which can adapt to surrounding word. It’s amazing. It’s breathe-taking.
Look at this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iEqGtMD2uc
Isn’t it admirable?
What we can say about this is that Vera's artistic work, deals substantively with erotically stimulating act in the form of body painting, and nevertheless should also be called "erotica" (from the Greek ἔρως, eros "desire").
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erotica
In my opinion there is a very tight gap between the definitions of "erotic" and "pornography" and, we should distinguish whether the most of you agree with me that Veruschka's performance could also be called "pornography".
Let's do a voting maybe? ;)
After reading this post I google her name. I didn't know her.
Very attractive and inspiring for photographers person.
example you presented us are so perfect, I need to see more...
But I don't understand why the scene in her movie was called "the most sexual off all time". For me it was only very thin almost anorexic girl tossing around:P
How did you know about this exhibition? :)
I have read about it in Harper’s Baazar :)
but after reading your article I 'googled' some her photos and now I have to say that its a little intrigue. It's difficult to comment, because I don't know a lot about photomodelling;)
But I remained YouTube video, where strange girl walks across the city without pants. Noone notice that becaouse of her body painting:
http://youtu.be/TadUMYgCGs8
What do you think about that idea? Someone could be so brave to do something like that?:D
There are more attractive women on this planet though... :)
Well, that made me laugh out loud :)
I'm not too much into art either, although I really liked the pictures. They made me think about the ideas of their author, of what is 'underneath' each picture, what were the reasons for making it...
I see...I like that magazine very much. Nice:)
We don’t see model in some photographs, because she is painted and sometimes it is hard to distinguish her from the background. Painter has to be extremely accurate during painting to achive such a great result