Unforgettable genius of fashion, Alexander McQueen returns to the spotlight with a photographic retrospective composed of 35 thousand shots taken by Ann Ray.
The internationally renowned visual artist and photographer has established a solid relationship with the fashion hooligan over the years. It all started in 1996, when he made the shooting for the first Givenchy collection designed by McQueen, then only 27 years old. From there, the two have always worked together, one behind and the other in front of the lens. A partnership that lasted until the designer committed suicide in 2010, when he was 40 years old.
Ray spent 12 hours a day in the atelier for a period of 13 years, creating over 35 thousand photographs that capture McQueen’s complexity: the man, the artist and the iconoclast.
And here, after Les Inachevés: Lee McQueen, a first show at the Rencontres d’Arles photography festival in 2018, today Ann Ray brings her unpublished collection of designer shots to Barrett Barrera Projects + in St. until 15 February 2020 Louis, Missouri. A journey through images, mostly in black and white, which tells the behind-the-scenes of the designer’s work. And it documents his passion for fashion, as well as the creations that had the merit of defining an entire era. The exhibition reveals a portrait of the artist as a young man outside the box, intimate and deeply passionate. The exhibition reflects Ray’s unique relationship with McQueen between the years 1997 and 2010, and also sees the leaders that McQueen gave her as protagonists. On display also 24 key pieces of the designer in possession of the Barrett Barrera Projects (which, for those who do not know, represents the largest private collection of the designer’s works).
A testimony not only photographic, therefore. “Lee never thought he was a genius. He never had a big head; he was a reserved, kind, respectful and lover of his work. He told me: I love your images but I have no money, so we will have to make an exchange. You give us pictures and we’ll give you clothes. We never had contracts; we were only bound by trust “, said Ray regarding his relationship with the designer. Adding: “We had a lot of fun. It was not the dark genius that people sometimes imagine. He was a complete artist and a man of complexity, contradictions and multiple facets. Mine are the portraits of his kind soul “. An album without filters, made by those who really knew it.
