Mark Seliger is a big part of my photographic life. Twenty-two years ago, when I settled down in New York at the request of the Outline boss (Jim Roehrig), Mark Seliger was already one of the star photographers of this wonderful press agency. Right then, it’s 1996, I realized that New York is already ahead of the art photography market. The first exhibition I am invited to is that of Seliger (Physiognomy), then represented by Howard Greenberg who for the occasion is lent a larger space than his gallery on Wooster Street: The Soho Triad on Grand Street. This is my first encounter with the Texas artist!
A few years later, in 2000, when I created my first gallery in Paris, I asked Mark Seliger to make the inaugural exhibition. At the time, he was the top photographer for Jann Wenner’s powerful Rolling Stone magazine. Thanks to this ultra popular title, Mark shot the whole planet. Whether musicians, movie stars, politicians, artists, all the great of this world passed in front of his lens. The little known photographer from Amarillo bought a building on the Hudson (on Charles Street), transformed it into a huge shooting studio and became THE portraitist of New York.
Subsequently, Mark will expand his panel of customers, putting his talent to the service of W, Vanity Fair, Vogue, Harpers Bazaar etc … For them, he also tried sublime fashion series, and became a popular photographer for leading American brands looking for stylish and effective advertising visuals. In his free time, he made very personal photographic research and released two books of shocking portraits: “When They Came to Take My Father: Voices of the Holocaust” on survivors of the Nazi camps and “On Christopher Street – Transgender Stories” on the transsexual community of Christopher St in NYC.
We did four exhibitions together: Physiognomy, The Platinum Show, In My Stairwell and Listen. Over time, the West Village artist has become a friend. It’s simple as only the greats know how to be. He listens, he is generous, of course he is a pain at times, but it is because excellence always requires a high level of expectations. A very good man.
But Mark Seliger is not just about photography. It’s also about film (the music videos of his friend Kravitz), music (two country rock albums, true to his roots, with his band The Rusty Trucks), television (with his show “Capture”), in short he is a multicards talent. I think he could have even been an actor.
For his thirty-year career, Abrams released a very rich monograph: “Mark Seliger – Photographs” with Kurt Cobain on the cover and the famous back of Barack Obama in the 4th. This book gave birth to an exhibition of 32 portraits “XXX” that will take place in my humble gallery place de l’ Alma from September to November. The magazine PHOTO pays tribute to our exhibition this month by devoting the cover and 14 pages of the exhibit, thank you Agnès.
As for Mark and France, it’s a beautiful love story. He shoots more and more covers for ELLE magazine. It was Jennifer Lawrence 10 days ago but also the first cover of Brigitte Macron last year that broke all records and for which the magazine received the award of the “editorial coup of the year”.
“XXX” is my fifth exhibition with Mark Seliger, 30 years of career and 22 years of friendship.
Arnaud Adida.
Mark Seliger – XXX
September 24 – November 3, 2018
A.galerie
4 rue Léonce Reynaud
75116 Paris
