Oana Ivan Gallery opens its doors with an inaugural exhibition dedicated to Peter Knapp, one of visionaries of contemporary imagery. Featuring around thirty iconic and previously unseen works by Peter Knapp, Compte à rebours, 2024–1960 offers a journey through time, tracing six decades of creativity, boldness, and innovation.
A master of the aesthetic revolution
Peter Knapp does not simply take photographs; he stages, reinvents, and transcends the boundaries between art and fashion. As Artistic Director of Elle magazine and a collaborator with some of the greatest designers – Yves Saint Laurent, André Courrèges, Thierry Mugler, and Issey Miyake – he transformed fashion photography into a visual manifesto, where each image becomes an experience. Rejecting the rigid codes of haute couture, he celebrates movement, spontaneity, and the unexpected, offering the women he photographs a new sense of freedom.
Women as the driving force of a visual imagination
Through Peter Knapp’s lens, women become symbols of a modernity in full bloom. His gaze captures an energy, a vital breath, where femininity and freedom blend in an unconstrained visual choreography. With his striking black-and-white imagery and bold framing, he moves away from static poses to explore the glow of a yawn, the imbalance of a gesture, or the intensity of a glance. Each photograph invites the viewer to rediscover the body, clothing, and their relationship with the surrounding space as fields of experimentation.
A new creative era: Peter Knapp’s collages
For his recent creations from 2024, four of which are featured in the exhibition, Peter Knapp explores a new collage technique. Drawing from his archives, he abandons traditional photographic paper in favor of canvas, where fashion photographs are interwoven with images of places that have inspired him, such as Salzburg, Ravenna, and Chartres. Bodies and landscapes are enriched with materials—fabric, marble, stone, or granite— that become essential elements of his compositions. Form and background merge, foreground and background blur, creating profoundly unique works.
Peter Knapp immerses us in a fictional universe where imagination reigns supreme. He invites us to transcend time alongside him, bridging the gap between the 1960s and today.
The art of capturing the moment
Peter Knapp captures more than a fleeting instant; he reveals the essence of movement and attitude. Every detail—a light grazing a silhouette, a gesture frozen in mid-air, or a shadow in motion—contributes to a composition that transcends fashion to become a work of art. This attention to visual rhythm, inspired by his passion for cinema and graphic arts, lends his images an intensity that surpasses their original function. The exhibition showcases this unique alchemy: photographs where the energy of the moment meets meticulous construction to craft an aesthetic that is timeless and radically modern.
A tribute to freedom and audacity
Through Compte à rebours, 2024–1960, the Oana Ivan Gallery celebrates an artist whose legacy continues to resonate in contemporary creation. The walls of 93 rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré become the stage for a body of work that, from the cobblestone streets of Paris to Mediterranean shores, tells the story of women’s emancipation and the liberation of the body.
Peter Knapp : Compte à rebours 2024 – 1960
From January 17 to April 17, 2025,
Oana Ivan Gallery
93 rue du Fbg Saint-Honoré
75008 Paris
Tuesday–Saturday: 11 AM–7 PM
www.galleryoanaivan.com
