As part of the Mois de la Photo in Paris, the Swedish Institute will presenting Distances différentes, a group exhibition that brings together the work of several Swedish fashion photographers: Denise Grünstein, Julia Hetta, Martina Hoogland Ivanow, Julia Peirone and Elisabeth Toll.
Fashion. I couldn’t care less. Or maybe I could.
It’s hard not to care about fashion—it’s everywhere.
Every morning, I go to the supermarket to buy breakfast.
It’s not far, so I go in my pajamas, sometimes with a scarf and usually in rubber boots.
A few years ago, while reading the excellent magazine Fantastic Man, I came across an article entitled “The PJ.” The topic was men who go out in the morning to buy breakfast in their pajamas.
I never thought I would be the subject of an article like this, but there I was, a full eight pages in The Gentlemen’s Style Journal.
Alright. But what if you go out naked?
Yes, that would still be fashion.
But… the photographs in a fashion article or ad campaign can be beautiful, even inspiring. They’re often taken for the sole purpose of appearing in a magazine or on a poster. Nothing else.
In another context, when we’re asked to consider them as art, things get complicated. The photographs are left to themselves.
I don’t mean to say that they’re any worse photographs for it. It’s just at, once they’re up on the wall, they cease to work.
Unless… we take those images out of context, and hang them on the walls just to contemplate them.
In this case, we discover that there are photographers who explore and push boundaries, creating bewitching environments where we can relax. They have mastered the difference between the intimate and the distant. Their photographs place us inside this tale, like a scene from a film, a memory, or a dream. They influence us, and help us to see our own beauty.
Greger Ulf Nilson, curator of the exhibition
Distances différentes
Denise Grünstein, Julia Hetta, Martina Hoogland Ivanow, Julia Peirone and Elisabeth Toll.
In part of Le Mois de la Photo 2012
November 7th, 2012 to January 27th, 2013
Institut suédois
Svenska institutet
Hôtel de Marle
11 rue Payenne
75003 Paris – France
T : +33 (0)1 44 78 80
