"Vintage Women"

Vintage Women is a series of black and white photographs of women that were the first international top models in Holland in the 60's. They worked for Vogue and Harpers Bazaar, and were photographed by world-renowned photographers such as Helmut Newton, Toscani, David Hamiliton and Norman Parkinson. They worked as top models in a time when models were paid for one hour and worked for the whole day.

My interest in these women is a subjective one.

My mother was a top model in London in the 60s; She was photographed for Vogue and later became an actress and worked for a few years in Hammer Horror films such as "The Mummy" and " Two faces of Doctor Jekyll". Upon returning to South Africa she worked as a fashion model and in television, but came to an untimely death in Johannesburg at the age of 40.
Photographs tell abstracted stories. They tell fragments, allowing the mind to go places. The western eye sees modern beauty as all-powerful. Domination by the beautiful person is central. The cool, untouchable impersonality of the perfect beauty has inspired writers, poets and assassins. Oscar Wilde believed that the beautiful person had the right to commit any act.
Beauty replaces morality as the divine act. The privileges of beauty are enormous. The longing for outward perfection creates a twisted suffering. The aging process is probably the most horrifying fear enhancing fact of life for the beautiful woman. We say that nature is beautiful. What is beautiful in nature is confined to the thin skin of the globe on which we huddle. Scratch the skin and nature's daemonic ugliness will erupt.
"VINTAGE WOMEN" is a solo exhibition in the Armando Museum, Amersfoort, Holland during the festival "THE BEAUTY OF EVIL" 20-1-2003 until 17-03-2003.

 

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