MOSCOW.-On the 20th of March 2008 at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art Anton Corbijn will personally introduce the audience to 170 photo-portraits, to be reckoned among the most significant works in the history of photography.
Anton Corbijn is the photographer who created the style of many modern musical culture icons. He has worked on musical videos, scenography and album covers for Depeche Mode and by doing so establishing the image for the famous band. Depeche Mode has even included Anton Corbijn as an unofficial member of the band. David Bowie, Mick Jagger, Martin Scorsese, Frank Sinatra, Morrissey, Bjork, Luciano Pavarotti, William Burroughs, Steven Spielberg, Takeshi Kitano, Kate Moss, Therapy?, Nirvana and U2 – this is only an abridged list of celebrities photographed by Anton Corbijn.
Anton Corbijn has recently finished work on his first feature film “Control” devoted to the tragic destiny of the legendary post-punk band Joy Division lead singer. This film turned out to be an instant success winning the Camera D’or (for best director’s feature film debut) at Festival de Cannes.
Anton Corbijn started his artistic career in 1972 by taking photographs at a rock-concert, and after this point the music world would never let him go. Anton Corbijn has been experimenting in different areas of modern visual culture – short films, music videos, live show decoration and design. However the main medium of his self-expression was always photography.
The “four dimensions” of Anton Corbijn are the milestones in his artistic career.
1973-1989: The album “Famouz” (1989), containing musician’s black-and-white documentary photographs, turned out to be a crucial event of this period. Anton Corbijn summarised the album as “a look inside from the outside” at renowned people like Miles Davis, Bono and Captain Beefhard.
1990-1996: Anton Corbijn started working in a new format for himself – studio photo shooting and those experiments were showed in “Star Trak” (1996) album. This is the time when he becomes a celebrity and shoots more and more new stars – Clint Eastwood, Marianne Faithful, Isabella Rossellini and many others. According to Anton Corbijn, in these works he took a look at “the inside from the inside”.
1997-2000: The series of portraits “33 Still Lives” was created in 1999 and the works are adroit imitations of paparazzi shots, but in fact are thoroughly staged in studio with use of decorations and lights. The photographs remained monochromic although prevailed by the blue tone. Robert De Niro, Catherine Deneuve, Mel Gibson, Tom Waits- stars of top calibre are presented on the portaraits as the non-existent heroes of film noir “looking at the outside from the inside”.
2000-2002: Anton Corbijn creates a series of self-portraits “A. Somebody” (2002). All images were taken on one of the Dutch islands, where the artist was born. On those photographs Anton Corbijn with the use of costumes and make up transforms into great musicians who had passed away (John Lennon, Bob Marley and Jimmy Hendrix). This is a modern “look at the outside from the outside” and highlights Anton Corbijn’s great passion for the world of music.
Seven books and catalogues featuring Anton Corbijn’s works have been published.
Anton Corbijn’s unique style is easily recognisable; it became one of the symbols of visual and musical cultures of the nineteen-nineties. This is the first opportunity for the Moscow audience to acquaint themselves with the fascinating world of Anton Corbijn’s photographs.