In All Honesty

With a career spanning almost four decades, Peter Lindbergh has become one of the world’s most sought-after photographers, one who has always stayed true to his artistic vision. While an impressive exhibit of his work is on display in the Netherlands, he explains how he managed to do things his way even when it seemed impossible.

- Paris Kormaris

As I saw Nadja Auermann standing in front of a photograph of her naked body blown-up to almost double life-size, I couldn’t help but ask her; “How does it feel, seeing yourself like that?” “Natural,” she replied. “It’s like looking at myself in the mirror.” We were at Peter Lindbergh’s exhibition at the Gagosian gallery in Athens and what Auermann said, so nonchalantly, is one of the secrets to the photographer’s success: his passion for immortalizing ‘natural’ beauty in a direct – yet poetic – way, without hiding any flaws or imperfections, such as the goose pimples on the model’s legs (“It must have been very cold,” she said laughing) or the faint scar of what might have been a C-section.

It was in Athens that Thierry-Maxime Loriot (whom I knew as curator extraordinaire of “The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier”, a blockbuster exhibition seen by more than two million visitors around the world) gave me the initial details of what he was working on with Lindbergh: “A Different Vision on Fashion Photography”, a spectacular overview of the German photographer’s multi- faceted oeuvres from 1978 to present day, which is currently on display at Rem Koolhaas’ Kunsthal in Rotterdam. The list of personalities who attended the opening – Auermann included – was impressive, from Tina Turner to the legendary supermodels of the 90's. 

Lindbergh was fortunately able to find the time to give me an exclusive interview on what made all this possible.