2017 Pirelli Calendar by Peter Lindbergh and more..

As part of the 10th Moscow International Biennale ‘Fashion and Style in Photography 2017’ MAMM presents an exhibition of the legendary Pirelli Calendar. Peter Lindbergh, one of the greatest fashion photographers of the modern age, worked on the 44th issue of the calendar. The Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow featured an exhibition by Peter Lindbergh at the first Fashion and Style in Photography Biennale in 1999. A large-scale retrospective of the artist’s work was also showcased by our museum during the Photobiennale 2010.

Peter Lindbergh collaborates with prestigious fashion houses and magazines such as Vogue, The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, Harper’s Bazaar, Wall Street Journal Magazine, The Face, Visionaire, Interview and W. His images can be seen in major international museum collections, including the Victoria and Albert Museum (London) and Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris).

Lindbergh is the only photographer Pirelli has invited to collaborate for the third time. He was the author of Pirelli Calendars in 1996 (California, El Mirage desert) and 2002 (Paramount Studios, Los Angeles). In 2014 Peter Lindbergh also worked with Patrick Demarchelier on a special publication dedicated to the calendar’s semi-centennial.

The MAMM exhibition also displays some of the best photographs from previous issues of the calendar, created by luminaries of world photography Helmut Newton, Richard Avedon, Annie Leibovitz, Herb Ritts, Patrick Demarchelier, Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin, Peter Beard, Karl Lagerfeld, Bruce Weber, Clive Arrowsmith, Arthur Elgort and Barry Lategan, Mert Alas and Marcus Piggot, as well as Nick Knight. The work of these photographers commissioned by the Pirelli Calendar from 1988 to 2016 provides an opportunity to follow the evolution of the female image in photographic art, as well as the evolution of photography itself over the last 30 years.

The photographer himself can best describe the concept of the Pirelli 2017 calendar: ‘In a time when women are represented in the media and everywhere else as examples of other-worldly perfection and beauty, I thought it was important to remind everyone that there is a different beauty, more real and truthful, that exists of its own accord. Beauty which speaks about individuality, the courage to be yourself and the expression of your own personality.’

Lindbergh has called this series of photographs ‘Emotional’, emphasising his intention to show on the pages of the calendar not ideal bodies, but emotions and feelings that reveal the very soul of his sitter. In order to convey his idea of natural beauty and femininity, Lindbergh selected 14 internationally renowned actresses: Charlotte Rampling, Nicole Kidman, Helen Mirren, Uma Thurman, Penelope Cruz, Kate Winslet, Julianne Moore, Jessica Chastain, Rooney Mara, Lupita Nyong’o, Lea Seydoux, Alicia Vikander, Robin Wright and Zhang Ziyi. Also included as a model in the calendar is Anastasia Ignatova, professor of Political Theory at MGIMO (Moscow State University of International Relations).

While working on the black and white portrait series for the 2017 Pirelli Calendar, Peter Lindbergh purposely avoided retouching and special effects. ‘My aim was to reinterpret the portrait photo and I did it by inviting women who have special significance for me ... As an artist I feel I’m responsible for freeing women from the idea of eternal youth and perfection. The ideal of perfect beauty promoted by society is something that simply can’t be attained,’ says the photographer.

British fashion journalist Suzy Menkes writes: ‘Refusing to bow to glossy perfection is Peter Lindbergh’s trademark — the essence of the images that look into each person’s unvarnished soul, however familiar or famous the sitter.’
This is how Lindbergh answers the question as to why he prefers black and white photography: ‘Black and white photography gives the subject of my shoot a special reality that is different from that of the real world in colour. It’s you who interpret reality by mixing black and white in order to create shadows, lights and forms. I think that black and white is an opportunity to transform reality into something else. This is the first step in a retreat from the banal and everyday, to an exciting new dimension that differs from our commonplace reality.’