Cover Girl

For over fifty years fashion photography has redefined the canons of female beauty again and again. One of the most widely shared visual cultures in the world, the province of advertising and fashion magazines, this particular art of the portrait has always had an impact to one degree or another on contemporary art.

Scheduled to open during Fashion Week, COVER GIRL the art show features ten pieces each of which offers a quirky, offbeat view of the “beautiful woman” aesthetics that is normally conveyed by the world of fashion.

The artworks selected for the show can be broken down into three different categories: those that are directly inspired by fashion photography (Alex Katz, Juan Francisco Casas) ; those that reappropriate its specific language in order to elaborate a critical discourse of a social or political nature (Joséphine Meckseper, Martha Rosler, General Idea, Michel Journiac, Claude Closky); and lastly those that use it as if it were an immense repertory of poetic forms (Hans-Peter Feldmann, Marlo Pascual, Rebecca Bournigault).

COVER GIRL also includes an arresting selection of magazine covers published by Galeries Lafayette between 1906 and 1968.