Rankin picks his favourite images for a solo show presented by 29 ARTS IN PROGRESS at Photo London 2021. Including in the exhibition are some of his best-known subjects & some of his more conceptual image-making.
As one of the world’s most influential image-makers Rankin has often transcended the fashion industry and taking a conceptual take on the notions of beauty and mortality. Inspired by the often intertwined themes of death and sex in his work.
The show explores Rankin’s editorial pieces to produce a multilayered discussion on light and darkness, hard and soft: these pieces take an intimate look at the dark side of desire from across Rankin’s career. Here, the act of seduction is so fierce a force of attraction as to take the viewer hostage.
Dodging that process of fetishization common to every exhibitionist phenomenon, the British artist uses his images to present a mirror that reflects the imagination whilst also providing a locus of capture between the viewer: he who looks and the subject who is being looked at. Here the seduction lies in delayed gratification, the act of biding one’s time before crossing the threshold and facing a constructed world, a bombastic, energy-rich, instinctive world cloaked in violent colour.
These shots by Rankin hold an undeniable energetic charge. The images return our gaze, take on a power of their
own, become autonomous.
Photo London 2021 will take place from 9th to 12th September with an invitation-only preview on Wednesday 8th September from 1 pm at Somerset House. Rankin presented by 29 ARTS IN PROGRESS Stand: G27, Courtyard Pavilion
29 ARTS IN PROGRESS is a leading art photography gallery located in the historic area of Sant’Ambrogio, Mila The gallery represents the work of internationally renowned photographers, with a focus on portraiture and fashion photography. Since its inception, the gallery has curated exhibitions in partnership with public and private museums including V&A Museum; Hong Kong Arts Centre; Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow; Erarta Museum of
Contemporary Art, Saint Petersburg; Palazzo Reale, Palazzo Pirelli and Triennale in Milan, Museum of Cultures in Lugano and Nicola Erni Collection in Steinhausen, Switzerland.
Rankin co-founded the seminal magazine Dazed & Confused with Jefferson Hack in 1991 his photography has been published everywhere from his own publications to Elle, Vogue, Esquire, GQ, Rolling Stone, and Wonderland, and exhibited in galleries around the world, including MoMA, New York, the Victoria & Albert Museum, London the Kunsthalle Rostock in Germany and the NRW-Forum Museum Dusseldorf Germany.
