The Antwerp fashion museum shows a selection from more than 30 years of work by Willy Vanderperre. FashionUnited was able to take a look together with the photographer.
For three decades, Vanderperre has photographed for editorials in AnOther Magazine, Dust, iD, Perfect, Vogue and W Magazine and campaigns for fashion houses such as Jil Sander, Calvin Klein, Dior and Prada. A selection of his work forms a personal story in which the photographer takes visitors through his passions and obsessions. He shares the common thread – a fascination with youth and subculture – with his partner Olivier Rizzo and Raf Simons. Their years of collaboration and mutual trust – unique in the fashion world – are part of this story. It is also the first time that MoMu is organizing a photo exhibition. Fashion photography was not initially created to end up on museum walls, but intended for reports and campaigns by brands.
Never change a winning team
It was not a classic retrospective – Vanderperre has not yet been photographed – nor a chronological arrangement or classic museum exhibition. The exhibition opens with an image from 2010, made in the drawing room of the Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp, where Vanderperre met Olivier Rizzo in 1989. This is followed by a wall of portraits from a series of zines that he made together with Rizzo as a tribute to the models. They show them unadorned, natural and pure.
Then we arrive at the photo that started it all: a campaign photo for Raf Simons from 1991, styled by Olivier, with a painted Mickey Mouse on the model’s face by make-up artist Peter Philips. The image arose spontaneously and was part of a dummy. It was never widely published, the internet did not exist yet. Yet it took on a life of its own and gave the three an international audience: “Why do I keep working with Raf and Olivier and choosing from the same pool of models? Because we provoke each other to the extreme. We owe it to each other to reinvent and surpass ourselves. To take a better photo than the best we have taken so far,” Vanderperre explains later.
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Caravaggio and Depeche Mode
Not only Mickey Mouse, Snow White also appears, as does the recurring Americana theme, a tribute to the hustler or Hitchcockian images in which Vanderperre started working with a flash for the first time. Images that unite Caravaggio with performance art or testify to his obsession with horror and Halloween. But also photos of young people in his often photographed Antwerp city park near his home. By hanging certain photos together, they take on a new meaning in this exhibition. Even the controversy surrounding Raf Simons’ Riot collection (AW01-02) is discussed: the parade with veiled rebellious teenagers was suddenly perceived very differently due to the 9-11 attacks.
The hall of celebrity portraits starts with Dave Gagan, Vanderperre’s ultimate idol when it comes to music. He also adds that playing Depeche Mode is part of the ritual for every shoot, it is a way to bring peace to the team and get into work mode. The celebrities Vanderperre captures must be able to inspire him. By their physical appearance or their personality, just like his models that he places on a pedestal: “You have to create a beautiful image together. It is better to do this with someone you feel strongly about or who fascinates you. They have to trigger me in some way.”
Soundscapes and merchandising
The commercial work for fashion houses was given a separate space in the exhibition, visually conceived as a kind of Times Square, with a video full of campaign images accompanied by a voice-over with quotes from the photographer. Among all the photo material, there is also room for merchandising such as a Club 55 T-shirt in Kuurne – the nightlife spot of the young Vanderperre – or postcards and buttons with prints of his work. But also works of art that have a link with his oeuvre, from an age-old Cranach learning something about framing to Ashley Bickerton’s evolving self-portrait. The latter consists of logos that the artist regarded as a new form of self-expression and identity in a consumer society.
The hand of the photographer is clearly present in the arrangement and way in which the work is shown: the eighties vibe with fluorescent lighting, the layout of the space and walls, the play with the formats of the prints. But also in peripheral programming. In addition to film screenings and nocturnes with performances by Amenra and Wim Mertens, a rave was on his wish list – hence the title of the exhibition: prints, films, rave and more… A fanzine was created and there will be ‘drops’ with exclusive merch – another nod to pop culture and consumerism. The proceeds from these collectible items go to Çavaria and MoMu’s youth projects.
Willy Vanderperre prints, films, a rave and more… runs from May 27 to August 4 at MoMu Antwerp, momu.be. The photo book of the same name is published by Lannoo.
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