• Ellen von Unwerth: Devoted to Enjoying Life

    Written by Ksenia Rundin

    Ellen von Unwerth is a photographer, who has lived her life on the both sides of the camera lens. After being a model for ten years, Ellen almost accidentally borrowed her boyfriend’s camera on a fashion production in Kenya and started photographing local children in a nearby village. The photographs were later published in the French magazine Jill, where Ellen got six pages for that purpose. Since then photography became her heimat [German; means Fatherland or Motherland or where you were born and where your roots are – the author] and has been that for the last thirty years. Ellen lost her parents at the age of two but she has found a new world in photography, where she feels safe and happy by eternalizing women with their lust, beauty and drama through her artworks. Today Ellen Von Unwerth has worked with all of the top fashion publications including Vogue, Vanity Fair, Interview, The Face, Arena, and i-D, and published dozens of books of personal work from exhibitions around the world.

    Her peculiar talent to make beautiful and powerful women remove their inhibitions and at the same time remain in control, appears clearly in her photographs. The current exhibition “Devotion. 30 Years of Photographing Women” consists of seven galleries dedicating to women’s emotional expressions: Love, Play, Power, Gender, Lust, Passion and Drama. It starts with powerfully fragile figure of Anna Wintour sitting at a working desk and fastening her Vogue-eyes, framed by the iconic pageboy bob haircut, into the camera. The beholder is almost able to hear a silent dialogue taking place between the two women on each side of the lens.

    All of a sudden you meet smiling David Bowie and Kate Moss in a playful and ironic but completely sincere hugging pose. When turning around you see Madonna’s cocky gaze, edged by the boldness of an eye-mask formed jewellery and the half-open mouth caressing a pearl necklace. Sensual playfulness of the female body in motion is caught in a contrasting softness of supermodels Naomi Campbell’s and Kate Moss’ shiny skin tones placed in an intimate atmosphere of a marble bathtub filled with water. Next moment you become overthrown by the marriage of a silk corset and a steal barbed wire clasping Rihanna’s figure and almost digging into the breasts, while slightly covering those.

    Philosophical contemplation of eroticism frames Ellen’s aesthetics, where you could smell the Weimar Republic era of the 1920’s with its decadent spirit and futuristic mood. There is also the image of femme fatale presented in the artworks, leading the thoughts to treacherous and calculating Elsa in “The Lady from Shanghai” (1947) played by resplendent Rita Hayworth.

    Furthermore, Ellen has an ability to depict the feeling of nudity in a gently and purely intelligent way, making a frisky child coming out of a woman being photographed. Such tactics brings out the woman’s real personality giving the provocative element presented in the photographs an additional dimension by breaking the paradigm of sexual obsession and bringing an emotional deepness to every composition.

    According to Ellen we need to take ourselves less seriously and try to keep playfulness in life instead of carrying a burden of the latter. Her artworks are all about it, illustrating a riot of fun and devotion to the mission of her life – to photograph girls and enjoy life. Let us celebrate life together with Ellen von Unwerth at the Swedish Museum of Photography!

  • @CHEN MAN, 12 Chinese colors Vermilion, 2011

    Chen Man

    Written by Sandra Myhrberg

    Intro by Ksenia Rundin

    Being born in post-revolutionary Beijing with the one-child policy in effect, the world’s famous female artist and photographer, Chen Man has created her own spiritual revolution by changing China’s face for the western world. Being compared with Annie Leibovitz and dubbed the “Mario Testino of China”, the artist has renegotiated the cultural and philosophical ideals of her home country established in the Western society boldly through her images giving the China’s beauty aesthetic its own postmodern identity and putting the latter on the world’s fashion scene. Seemingly, “Fearless & Fabulous” – the artist’s first solo exhibition taking place outside China – is a luminous proof of that. The exhibition opened on December 9th at Museum of Photography in Stockholm and has undoubtedly conquered the fastidious cultural world of the Scandinavian capital.

    The artist’s works create a self-speaking dualistic illustration of a new aspirational China, where East meets West in a reality balancing between the outer beauty and the inner wisdom. Furthermore, Chen, as China’s top fashion photographer and artist, has a myriad of photo shoots on her CV, starting with Dior campaigns and ending by her self-portrait for Qeelin’s Chen Man by Chen Man campaign. Her lens has virtuously captured China's national icon, actress Fan Bingbing and strikingly eternalised such celebrities as Rihanna, Nicole Kidman, Keanu Reeves and Victoria Beckham. Chen’s photographs have been acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum for their permanent collection.

    Entirely, the images of Chen Man are easily recognisable as they embrace both modern post-production techniques and Eastern themes, creating an own unique fearless and fabulous philosophical fusion of pure romance, rough spirit, naked ambitions and exquisite humour.


    I have understood you started with art at an early age. At what age did you steer over to photography?
    When I was in college my major was in photography.

    I read that you were born during the time when China was implementing the one-child policy in families, do you think that had an affect on your artistic exploration?
    Off course, I was a single child. Our generation started to study really early. The thing is that I am really good at painting. My parents gave me professional training at painting. Classes to train different techniques since I was two years old. Actually my major profession is a painter and I still paint. I am a better painter than a photographer.

    Your work almost looks like paintings after post production, did you ever work with analog photography or have you always worked with the digital medium?
    I started with a series of images for an art magazine called Vision Magazine when I was in college, I made one photo per month. I have a lot of passion for the visual language, therefore I have used a lot of Photoshop and really heavy post-production since then. That is where people think I am from. My name is Chen Man, so a lot of people [outside China] think that I am a man. At that time no one used Photoshop in China, when those works reached the market. Artist and photographers were quite shocked about this series. Thus, they didn’t know wether to define me as an artist or a photographer.

    Did you teach yourself photoshop or did you study?
    I am also a graphic designer so I kind of already new photoshop.

    You also have a clothing label, how come you started to do clothing design?
    I am not a professional clothing designer but I was approached by different brands to put together a crossover collection since I am kind of a celebrity in China. I have a bunch of followers on Instagram, over 10 million in China. A lot of them are young girls and that is a huge market so the brand has chosen me as a special artist to create different kinds of products. This is my fifth year creating a collection. I like cosmetics and I also have a collab with Mac Cosmetics. The brand chose me as a first Chinese artist for their collection of limited edition of crossover products called Love & Water.

    What's your favourite camera you like to use?
    I am not a fan of the machine so I use what I have, for example Hasselblad and Canon. I have Canon investors in China.

    You were first published with a self portrait in a Chine’s art magazine that caught a lot of attention, and shortly after you were published in many international publications, do you think the rise of the internet at the time helped you gain recognition outside China as a young artist?
    Yes, could be. I was reported by different kinds of medias in the beginning such New York Times, CNN and ID.

    How is it to work as a female photographer in China? Have you felt any limitations?
    I don’t feel any limitations. I am quite casual, not really tuff as a business woman. I am concentrating on the visual language and how to enjoy it. I think it is a convenience that I am a woman. I shoot a lot of female actresses and therefore I can shoot them totally nude without any boundary.

    Are the editors at the magazines you work with in China mostly men or women?
    Most of the editors I  work with are mostly female or gay….

    Do you find that you work in a different way when you work with international clients?
    No, it depends on the country and on different people. Some really understand their brand and know what they need and they trust their choice and let me do what I want. Other brands don't know who they are yet and are trying to figure out what they want to do.
    So, could you say that you do branding in a way? Yes.

    What do you think about the beauty industry in China and do you feel that you can influence how young girls look at beauty?
    I feel like I can for example when I made a series of 12 different images for a cover for ID.
    The series is called  Motherland. I shoot young girls from different Chinese minorities with faces not typically seen as beautiful or trendy in China (bead eyes, white glass skin). I wanted to illustrate what beauty is right now in China. I shoot them totally straight, combined with 12 different Chinese colors for the contemporary backgrounds.
    Actually the fashion area at that time refused to shoot reality world in China because they wanted to be chic and fashion and more like the western world or the Korean standards. Since I am professional at visual stuff I felt I should do that. There were 12 covers from one issue. I wanted to show the imperfections so the images are actually not at all retouched. I wanted to give the audience a kind of confidence that we are beautiful the way we are.

    Is it something in particular that inspires you when you are beginning a project?
    My function is to absorb the vision. I just catch the object. So, when I get the information about the person, the image will already be in my mind.

    I heard you have 70 people working for you. How many photo assistants do you have?  Yes, it is true. I have around 15 photo assistants. Our studio is also a rent studio. It is 2,000 square metres. So we have the rental department and the post production department of 10 people. After a photo shot I give the post production a sample and then they follow the directions.

    Chen Man-Fotografiska
    Fearless & Fabulous
    9 december, 2017 — 4 mars, 2018

    @CHEN MAN, 12 Chinese colors White, 2011
    @CHEN MAN, Sex Flower 3, 2003
    @CHEN MAN, Taikonaut, 2003
    @CHEN MAN, Miss Wang Studies hard, 2011
    ©CHEN MAN, Long Live the Motherland, Beijing No. 1, 2010
        @CHEN MAN, Long live the Motherland, Beijing 5, 2009
        ©CHEN MAN, Long live the Motherland, Beijing 3, 2009
    @CHEN MAN, portrait 2
    ©CHEN MAN, Long live the Motherland, Shanghai, 2010
  • photography by JÖRGEN AXELVALL

    The Family of the Future

    Written by Mari Florer

    “The Family of the Future”

    The Tokyo based contemporary photographer Eiki Mori started to explore the themes: same-sex marriage, family and sexuality as a teenager; portraying his mother, lover and friends using his father’s camera. Today, he still does and he himself acts in front of the camera in diverse family situations. In Eiki Mori’s new Photobook “Family Regained”, launched in December, Mori, with the history of oppression of homosexuals in his mind, presents the gay family as it should have been.

    Odalïsque had a chance to speak with EIKI MORI during his latest solo exhibition entitled Family Regained at Ken Nakahashi Gallery.

    What is your exhibition “Family Regained” about?
    Family Regained is a portrait series, in which I shoot myself with my friends, acquainted lovers and young couples of more than 40 of those people in several forms of Family, including being alone. I take the pictures at their place and yard, where they are live, using the self-timer function.
    The title is borrowed from the epic, Paradise Regained by English poet John Milton. Back in time when it was a crime for homosexuals to just being in love, there were those who loved with the risk of their life. Lovers who were unaccepted of even imagining of marrying or having children. I photographed imagining The Family of the Future that should have been theirs.

    What does the word “family” means to you?
    Someone you feel infinite love for, or in a relationship with, this is “family” for me.

    What is your best photo memory you ever have experienced in your life so far?
    Ten years ago, when I met my mother in Tokyo after a long time of each other’s absence, we went to the beach. At that time, my mother was very young and beautiful, but at the same time I felt afraid my mother would disappear if I captured her in the perfect form of beauty. So, I photographed her in the shining sunlight at the beach with a disposable camera which I could not hope for quality. The pictures were insufficiently over or under-exposed, but those are still my most precious pictures, filled with my love for her.

    Is there an artist you really really like?
    Hervé Guibert, It might be laughable, as it is my selfish delusion. I somehow feel myself as a reincarnation of him, who died of AIDS at the age of 36. I may not have his talent, but I feel I should undertake what he couldn’t finish, and continue writing and shooting.

    What do you long for in 2018? Is there any undone photo project you want to fulfill?
    A new performance work with the theme of a fictitious poet, with moving images and textual work.

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