bettina rheims: more trouble

Rating:
Summary: - Incandescent decadence -
Review: Seeing Bettina Rheims' first collection of color photos was as revelatory as seeing those of Helmut Newton in 'White Women' some 30 years ago (my Italian wife was so infuriated by his work that she tore the dust jacket in half the instant she saw it). I would hardly call Ms. Rheims' new collection erotic in the same way. Her work seems much less obvious; most of the work tends toward the vaguely suggestive, in the sense of stimulating one's imagination without stirring one in other ways, rather like viewing Titian's many varieties of Venus, rather than the concupiescient versions of Cranach, but it is similarly artificial inasmuch as it appears to be the result of careful planning and posing, if not editing, with a few possible exceptions. Plainly Newton's portrait work is the chief influence here. By comparison her nearest competitor, Doris Kloster, seems much more obvious, if not vulgar. Ms. Rheims is able to get her gorgeous film & fashion society stars to play at being fictional versions of their screen & print personas, gently mocking the roles & poses they take professionally. In this there is something of the early Cindy Sherman in the back of Ms Rheims mind, I think. This playfulness, this undercurrent of self-mockery sets her sumptuous work apart from all other current glamour photographers. Ironically this complexity of expression keeps the erotic aspects from being vulgar. I would guess that Ms. Rheims's greatest appeal will be among women. I am not able to judge the very few photos of male idols such as Michael Douglas, Tupac Shukur, and Jackie Chan, but the men (with the notable exception of Tupac) seem rather uncomfortable and even stilted in their poses. Rheims' true milieu and gift appears to be in depicting the eternal and yet transitory female idol. Based on the evidence of this collection she seems destined to make a significant mark. I hope to see more of her work as her subjects (Emmanuelle Beart, Audrey Tatou, Sophie Marceau, Sharon Stone, Marisa Miller, etc.) mature -- or will she gravitate instead to the newest & youngest actresses & models in future? Although a very few photos leave me unimpressed (mostly remnants of previously unpublished b&w & those of Madonna who seems not to have gotten very much into the spirit of the game, or else Bettina came along too late to show the singer/actress at her showbiz best) almost all of the color work is uniformly beautiful - sometimes exceedingly so -- not least because the models seem to collaborate in the subtle hi-jinks. The book gives me reason to wonder if I should not buy one of Bettina Rheims' prints, or maybe two before she herself becomes a star. A less expensive soft cover version of this collection (currently retailing at a whopping $90.00 USD) would expand this talented off-beat photographer's audience.