Sunday, November 13, 2016

Stunning, Rare Images Collected by a Fashion-World Force

Art

Stunning, Rare Images Collected by a Fashion-World Force

By GAY GASSMANN

NOV. 10, 2016

As a longtime editor and the creator of 10 Corso Como, Milan’s high-end retail and dining complex, Carla Sozzani is a well-known figure in the fashion world; and as the founder of the gallery there that bears her name, she’s been a longtime force in the art world as well. What many don’t know is that she is also a passionate collector of photography. For more than 40 years, she has built a collection of over 650 works, mostly in black and white, representing more than 70 artists from the 19th century to today: big names like Helmut Newton, Alfred Stieglitz, August Sanders and Irving Penn, but also lesser-known photographers like Xanti Schawinsky, an experimental artist from the 1920s.

Starting this week in Paris, for the first time ever, the Galerie Azzedine Alaïa will be showing a selection from her collection, curated by the director of the Modern Art Museum of the City of Paris, Fabrice Hergott. Sozzani had never considered exhibiting the photographs — in fact, she never even really considered them a collection — but when Alaïa, a close friend, asked her to show them in his gallery, she thought it might offer the chance to revisit the works, and to see them with a new eye.

Together with Sozzani, Hergott made a final selection of more than 200 photographs spanning the entire breadth of the collection. They decided to hang the works alphabetically, rather than chronologically or thematically — which has revealed some unexpected juxtapositions. “Like every collection, this one is about obsessions,” Hergott says. “She knows every single piece, and very well — this is clearly a passion. She selects the unexpected, like a landscape by August Sander, known for his portraits.” Even for someone as well versed as Hergott, there were discoveries to be made in the collection, like the work of the surrealist Welsh photographer and set designer Angus McBean.

Sozzani’s long career in fashion, which began in 1968, is reflected as well, in photos of Dior at Granville and Coco Chanel at rue Cambon, as well as her own portrait by Dominique Issermann. And very appropriately for the venue, there’s also a portrait of Alaïa himself by William Klein. “This is really art,” Hergott says. “A fantastic image.”