NOW: a new generation of fashion photographers
Photography exhibition at Färgfabriken art gallery, Stockholm, 2000
This landmark exhibition staged at the spacious Färgfabriken art gallery in Stockholm in 2000 was a spin-off from our premiere version of our Swedish Style in Tokyo event the year before, 1999.
It was in Tokyo during this event that the idea arose in discussions between ourselves with Stockholm New, Färgfabriken director and curator Jan Åman and the young art and fashion photographer André Wolff. We agreed to stage an exhibition in Färgfabriken with a new generation of edgy, avantgarde, anti-commercial photographers in the borderlands of art and fashion, those who had their scenes and the edgy, artsy fashion magazines of the era, such as Purple, Self Service, The Face, I-D, Dazed & Confused, Visionaire and others, in addition to Stockholm New. André Wolff, himself very much a part of the culture, should be chiefly responsible for the selection as co-curator.
Said and done. We ended up with a truly magnificent, very powerful show, quite shocking for the era, when fashion photography in itself, at least of this breed, was still a new, alien expression in the eyes of most, not least in the art world. Many of the contributing photographers/artists, a majority of whom traveled to Stockholm for the riotous opening, went on to become big names. The contributing artists were: Ola Bergengren, Anuschka Blommers & Niels Schumm, Cedric Buchet, Anders Edström, Lee Jenkins, Jean-Pierre Khazem, Michel Mallard, Guido Mocafico, Phil Poynter, Jeff Reidel, Stefan Ruiz, Maurice Scheltens, Norbert Shoerner, Sølve Sundsbø, Paul Wetherell and André Wolff himself.
We produced an ambitious catalog for the exhibition, designed by Henrik Nygren, which received several prestigious awards. The exhibition was much publicized and hyped, in Sweden and in the global fashion world, generating major features in magazines such as VOGUE Italia.
AI on NOW: a new generation of fashion photographers:
NOW™: a New Generation of Fashion Photographers was a landmark art exhibition and catalog published in 2000 at the contemporary art venue Färgfabriken in Stockholm, Sweden.
The project served as a definitive time capsule for the shifting aesthetic of fashion imagery at the turn of the millennium, capturing the raw, candid, and often anti-commercial wave of talent emerging at the time.
Core collaboration and curation:
· The Curators: The exhibition was a collaborative initiative driven by Färgfabriken, the cult avant-garde style magazine Stockholm New, and curated by photographer André Wolff.
· The Talent: It showcased a distinct, global group of boundary-pushing contemporary creators who redefined fashion photography, including the notable Dutch duo Blommers & Schumm.