He strayed away from traditional imagery and created obscure, challenging pictures that disturbed and delighted the viewer by breaking down visual expectations.
He was also the only photographer, besides Helmut Newton, that had total creative control of his images when they went to print at Vogue, right down to the crop dimensions.
But that's enough about the feller, if you want to find out more, there's a whole exhibition of his work just dying to be seen by you. It's one of the better value exhibitions I've been to, at £9 for adults and £7 for concessions, with a large range of his work and background information, giving a greater context to his images. Otherwise, I would've thought he was a bit more raw than he was, as is the style of his photography. You have no idea how much work went into his images, it's all incredibly carefully planned out.
Here are my favourite bits and pieces from there, I was careful not to take too many photos as I wanted to actually take in the information in front of me. Also it really aggravates me when people gaze at what's in front of them through their smartphones, it all gets a bit Black Mirror for my liking.
This one in particular caught my attention, as at first I thought it was an image of burns victims - so naturally it drew my darker interests in, as I wanted to know why... On further inspection of the image, I discovered that this, on first appearances destructive bit of imagery, was in fact two people totally encrusted in black and red gems. It's actually quite beautiful. You can also see through the annotations above and the image below, the difference a crop can make. Bourdin was into the square frame before the world had even thought the word Instagram.
The below image is just great, I love it. Alongside this one was a whole range of contact sheets and different shots, actually dozens of different processes and compositions of exactly the same thing. Guy Bourdin's perfectionism was admirable.
However, as with all great adventures, the most exciting parts came when we strayed from our original path.
We chose not to navigate our way to Somerset house too accurately, opting instead for our built in senses of direction. As it turns out this is a sense that is as lacking in both of us. We did, whilst lightly lost, manage to find quite an interesting exhibition in Korean silversmithing. Yeah. You read that right.It would've been pretty average. It would've been pretty tame, and filled with pretty, slightly interesting stuff like this:
Double sided drinking goblets.
The fake smile scarf 'To symbolise the oppression of the minimum wage worker'... Heavy.
But the Koreans are an oppressed race so naturally there had to be one letting out years of severe emotional beating, and trauma. Thankfully, we gave the exhibition our full attention, and look how delighted Lisa was when we discovered the final hidden cabinet in a little alcove where nobody should ever have found it:
This was twisted, and brilliant, and I want it all.
This girl's whole deal was that she sliced up children's toys and reformed them into hybrids, casting some parts in silver. There's more images on Lisa's blog, I was too transfixed by the insanity of it all to properly hold my camera without shaking from laughing. Oh, and the exhibition was free. Look for it, just for this, they're so good.
This blog post has not been in chronological order, so I'll tell you briefly about the last visit we made after the Guy Bourdin, to another exhibition in Somerset house called 'The Unseen Emporium'. It was very hidden away, and difficult to find (hardly ironic, but almost there), and it was a small shop selling products that had been treated to react to light, heat, air pressure... So there were quills that turned from black to vivid green the more elaborately you wrote, and clothing that would absorb light throughout the day so that at the end of the day you'd be wearing a totally different colour to the one you started the day in.
I think the word amazing is completely overused. But this was, truly, amazing. I recommend it highly. It's just a shame all their branding and messaging is so full of meaningless drivel. Seriously. What does this even mean:
I am pretty resistant to bullshit at the best of times and this really did rub me up the wrong way. But if you can see past this rubbish... It really is worth having a look at.
And if anyone wants to buy me one of their candles, it's pretty high up on the wish list right now...
So there you have it. There's plenty to discover in London if you don't know where to look.
After this point we went to the pub. It was new year's eve. We're not that civilised.
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