Guy Bourdin: A Message For You

Steidl/Dangin
Edited by Shelly Verthime. Essay by Nicolle Meyer.

With the eye of a painter and the freedom of a photographer, Guy Bourdin created images full of fascinating stories, compositions, and colors. Using fashion and fashion photography as his vehicle, he explored the realms between the absurd and the sublime, taking cues from the theater and Surrealism. Along the way he became famous for his suggestive narratives and fantastic aesthetics--he broke conventions of commercial photography with a relentless perfectionism and sharp humor. Given total creative freedom, Bourdin captured the imagination of a generation. The late 1970s, recognized as the highest note in Bourdin's career, are the focal point of this two-volume edition. Volume I is dedicated to the legendary, nearly forgotten images he made with Nicolle Meyer as his model, and to their rarely seen variants. Meyer appeared in over 30 of his famous campaigns for Charles Jourdan and in iconic French Vogue editorials. Volume II is a road trip through Bourdin's visual landscape, a collage of images mapping his artistic search and vision. Texts, Polaroids, poems, sketches and contact sheets unfold in time with Nicolle Meyer's memories, and inscribe moments of Bourdin's working process that would otherwise be lost. To this day, Guy Bourdin, remains an enigma, and he leaves a provocative and compelling legacy. A Message for You examines that oeuvre and, perhaps more importantly, it provides insight into the complex workings of the photographer's mind.