The Brazilian photographer Otto Stupakoff was a pioneer of fashion photography in his own country and he also had an international reputation. He lived in São Paulo, New York, Paris and even Bangkok, and throughout his career he worked for the great fashion magazines (Harpers Bazaar, Life, Esquire, Glamour, Look, Vogue…), and photographed the iconic figures of his time, in Brazil and elsewhere. Tom Jobim, Niemeyer, Leonard Cohen, Truman Capote and even Grace Kelly, to name but a few, were among those who passed before his lens. The Institut Moreira Salles in Rio de Janeiro, which has added more than 16,000 of the photographer’s images to its collection since 2008, has dedicated this exhibition to him.
Its title is Beleza e Inquietude (Beauty and Anxiety), in a reference to the “anxious beauty” evoked by Umberto Eco in his History of Beauty. The exhibition navigates around the photographer’s visual search, marked as it is by his fascination for glamour and beauty. Stupakoff endlessly photographed women: the models with whom he worked for various fashion magazines, but also the women in his life, his friends… Bob Wolferson, curator of the exhibition with Sergio Burgi even went as far as evoking the figure of Thomas in Antonioni’s film Blow Up: “Otto is the personification of the photographer as charmer, seducer and adventurer”.
An adventurer, Otto is one, too. As the other sides of his work that are also part of the exhibition, demonstrate: his travel photographs around the world, his experiments with collages… And it is also the photographer’s working world that is revealed in parallel with the glossy pages – the space that opens the exhibition is that of a photographer’s studio, with its white background and its lighting – to the selection and editing stages, revealed through the contact sheets that punctuate the exhibition, a look behind the scenes of Stupakoff’s work is spread throughout this exhibition. The accent is therefore placed on the experimentation and the process to which the photographer turns before achieving his polished portraits of fashion icons, to take us into the maze of a beauty that is far from being superficial.
Elsa Leydier
Elsa Leydieris a photographer and a specialist writer. She divides her time between Lyon and Rio de Janeiro.
Otto Stupakoff, Beleza e Inquietude
From 13th December 2016 to 16th April 2017
Institut Moreira Salles
Rua Marquês de São Vicente, 476
Gávea CEP 22451-040, Rio de Janeiro
Brazil
http://ims.com.br/ims/visite/exposicoes/otto-stupakoff-beleza-e-inquietude
