Taylor Wessing to Sponsor “Face of Fashion” Exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery - Exhibition dates: 15 February – 28 May 2007
Leading European law firm, Taylor Wessing, is delighted to be a co-sponsor of "Face of Fashion" exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery this spring. The exciting exhibition focuses on the portraits of five outstanding fashion photographers from Europe and America: Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott, Corinne Day, Steven Klein, Paolo Roversi and Mario Sorrenti.
Michael Frawley, Managing Partner at Taylor Wessing, comments:
"Taylor Wessing’s ongoing collaboration with the National Portrait Gallery and sponsorship of Face of Fashion is consistent with our goal to support artistic and cultural events in the key jurisdictions in which we operate. We are very excited to begin the New Year with this sponsorship and all the possibilities it presents. We will use this opportunity to host a number of events at the Gallery for our corporate, technology and finance clients amongst others. We will also be involving our community partners, including St Mungo's homelessness charity, UCLH and Thomas Buxton Primary School, in the exhibition through interactive workshops, tours of the exhibition, curator talks and a range of other initiatives.”
As the boundaries between advertising, editorial and fine art blur, the world’s most famous fashion photographers are shaping our ideas of beauty and fame and, as a result, fashion photography is dominating our visual culture.
Mert & Marcus, Corinne Day, Steven Klein, Paolo Roversi and Mario Sorrenti are each unique and distinctive in style. Together their work explores the extraordinary intimacy, despite the commercial context, that exists between photographer and the subject and how this relationship, often perceived to be exploitative, so frequently empowers both parties.
Corinne Day, an ex-model herself who has famously worked consistently with Kate Moss for 15 years, collaborates closely with her subjects developing an intimacy which results in some of the most candid portraits in fashion. Her portraits speak volumes about the anti-glamour zeitgeist of the 1990s.
Steven Klein often creates complex and dark narratives in his portraits, including a ‘family’ sequence with Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt in which they knowingly mocking their perceived personas. He is widely acknowledged as one of the most subversive and transgressive of contemporary fashion photographers.
Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott are famous for their off-beat but glamorous portraits of stars such as Kate Moss, Uma Thurman, Drew Barrrymore and Bjork. Producing a strange, and at times anxious intensity in their constructed images, they create pure fantasy for the modern age.
By contrast, Paolo Roversi uses traditional studio techniques and stage lighting to create naturalistic, fragile portraits of his subjects, among them Sting, Juliette Binoche and Charlotte Gainsbourg. Influenced by nineteenth century portrait photographers such as Julia Margaret Cameron, Roversi revels in an ethereal, soulful beauty.
Mario Sorrenti is fascinated by people’s faces and the passions, fears and vulnerabilities they are capable of communicating. Equally adept at endorsing conventional notions of glamour as he is at subverting them, Klein embodies the ambiguity of today’s fashion photography.
Face of Fashion is curated by Susan Bright, independent curator and writer, author of Art Photography Now, published in 2005 by Thames & Hudson. The exhibition opens with London Fashion Week 2007.
A lavishly illustrated book accompanying the exhibition will include full plate reproductions of the portraits in the exhibition, together with essays by Susan Bright and by Vince Aletti, music journalist for publications including Rolling Stone and The Village Voice and photography critic for The New Yorker. It is published by the National Portrait Gallery and will retail at £35.00.
Ends
Notes to editors
For more information please contact Claire Treacy at Taylor Wessing:
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7300 4925
Email: c.treacy@taylorwessing.com
About Taylor Wessing
This is Taylor Wessing's second partnership with the NPG, having sponsored the World's Most Photographed exhibition, July-October 2005.
Taylor Wessing is a leading law firm providing legal support for commercial organisations doing business in Europe. Based in Belgium, France, Germany and the UK, Taylor Wessing provides the full range of legal services to major corporations and growing enterprises. Taylor Wessing boasts a strong reputation in the corporate, finance and real estate sectors alongside in-depth experience across the full range of legal services including intellectual property and technology, tax, litigation & dispute resolution, employment & pensions and private client.
About the Exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery
For more information on the exhibition, please contact: Neil Evans or Catherine Bromley in the Press Office, National Portrait Gallery; Tel: 020 7312 2452 / 020 7321 6620; Email: nevans@npg.org.uk / cbromley@npg.org.uk or visit www.npg.org.uk/press
Exhibition details: Admission £8, Concessions £6, Wolfson Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, St Martin’s Place, London, WC2H 0HE Nearest Tube: Leicester Square/Charing Cross
National Portrait Gallery opening hours: Daily 10am – 6pm Late Opening: Thursdays and Fridays until 9pm Recorded information: 020 7312 2463 General information: 020 7306 0055 www.npg.org.uk
