Untold Stories: Inside Legendary Photographer Peter Lindbergh’s Final Exhibition
Right until his death in September 2019, the renowned image-maker Peter Lindbergh was completing "Untold Stories, the first and last exhibition he had ever curated.
Currently on show at Düsseldorf’s Museum Kunstpalast, the exhibit runs from now until 1 June, and encompasses an edit of ten dozen unpublished and short-lived works, out of the countless assignments Lindbergh embarked on for the likes of Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Interview, and Rolling Stone that spanned four decades.
It features unseen aspects of Lindbergh’s work, including previously unseen images of legendary supermodels such as Claudia Schiffer, Karen Elson and Milla Jovovich, and tributes from personal friend and legendary filmmaker Wim Wenders.
The work of Lindberg encompasses across four decades, from the early 1980s to today, and are equally admired by the fashion crowd and the public for his timeless and sensual portrayal of women. His works, which often transcends the boundaries between fashion photography and contemporary art, display his captivation with women of all walks of life, the beauty of mature women – the experiences of giving birth and rearing, love and heartbreak, and everything in between, which has lost none of its relevance to today.
Sultry, dramatic and chic, the exhibit illustrates the broad spectrum of his oeuvre and his honesty to his approach in fashion, doing away with the glamour and theatrics. Lindbergh offers an intimate protrayal of his subject, and had a distinctive charm and aura that allowed his subjects to let loose and forget about the camera, engaging wholeheartedly in this camaraderie and the creative process.
From leading actresses to supermodels, each candidate is spellbound. Uma Thurman, Claudia Schiffer, and Naomi Campbell are some of the beauties that you are about to see with fresh eyes in this set of never-before-seen stills – more beautiful, more intimate.
For many of us who may not be able to experience the exhibit, Taschen has published a coffee table book to accompany the exhibition, compiling 150 of Lindbergh’s photographs and text, exploring his process of building the show, an interview with the photographer about his curatorial experience, alongside personal sketches and notes made while planning.
Lindbergh specifically chose a special uncoated paper – a thin sheet with a soft, open surface – as a deliberate aesthetic statement and to mimic how the photographs are presented live.
‘Untold Stories’ is on show until 12th July 2020 at Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf, Germany (www.kunstpalast.de).
