PETER LINDBERGH

"About Peter Lindbergh", a foreword by Wim Wenders in "Stories", November 2002

ABOUT PETER LINDBERGH – BY WIM WENDERS

How does he do it ?

I’m not talking about his art here,
nor about his craft.
Both are beyond any doubt extraordinary,
beautiful,
mysterious,
unique,
but not necessarily beyond my grasp.

I can marvel at his pictures,
gasp,
yearn,
or be stunned,
but as photographs
they are still part of our contemporary universe.
No matter how much we can admire them,
we can still « understand » them :
The beauty of these women in front of Peter’s lens,
after all, is known to us.
We’ve seen them and adored them all
in many other contexts,
with other makeup,
different hairstyles,
in other clothes…
that’s not it..

When I seriously ask how « he does it, »
because I seriously don’t get it,
I don’t want to know how he lifts up his camera,
how he frames what he sees,
or how and when he releases the shutter.
I’m neither mystified by his mise-en-scène,
nor the light,
the scenery,
or the composition.

I’m strictly in the dark about something else.
As you can easily read,
I have a hard time to even put my finger on it.

The world of fashion photography is glamorous,
seductive,
sometimes shocking,
sometimes hitting our deepest dreams and desires.

But we’ve gotten used to its shiny surface.
After all, it is covering the planet.

You can’t open a magazine
without being confronted by it.
You can’t move around any city
without seeing it shine down on you from billboards
or out of boutique windows.

Only that Peter Lindbergh’s photographs are utterly different.
They defy all laws of gravity in this realm.
They redefine the very world they depict.

How he does it ?
I’m trying to approach the phenomenon naively,
meaning without any prejudice,
and forgive me if it takes some detours.
I find out things by writing about them…

These women he takes pictures of,
Call them « models, » « goddesses, » or « queens, »
almost by definition never reveal themselves.
They HAVE TO keep their distance from us,
In order to be who they are.
Getting to know them personally, so to speak,
would be a disappointment, not to say a sacrilege.
It would be like looking at family pictures of them.
(And indeed, sometimes, in some awful society or gossip pages
you see them robbed of their aura,
and you feel miserable for them,
as if you were an accomplice to the thief
who took their pictures,
« shot them », in the very sense of the word.)

Yet in the photographs of Peter Lindbergh
you do see these extraordinary women
In all their glory
Without their disguises,
Without the « front »,
Stepping right out from behind the shiny surface
They are used to showing us.

They ARE, indeed, radically revealing themselves,
only
that it doesn’t demystify them,
it doesn’t make them appear naked
or unprotected,
on the contrary !

And this exactly is the total mystery,
the science fiction aspect of Peter’s work,
the complete utopia, as far as I’m concerned :
He turns those goddesses into human beings,
Without taking any of their aura away !

Both aspects of that contradiction even enhance themselves,
each making the other more believable,
against all odds,
against all laws in the field not only of fashion,
but of public life in general.

Lindbergh quite simply defies the rules of MYTH.

Maybe my initial question doesn’t seem so far-fetched anymore :
« How does he do that ? »

I still don’t have an answer,
but it dawns on me all of a sudden
that I might have caught a glimpse of his secret
without recognizing it :
I’ve seen his smile.
Not much of a secret for a photographer, you say ?
You’re wrong.

Peter’s smile comes from deep within,
From a calm well beyond all the agitation
That might be associated with « photography »
Or more so, with « fashion. »

You look into his friendly eyes
and you might start to understand
how this untroubled and unimpressed gaze
will manage to penetrate and transform
whatever’s in front of them.

Another soul behind these powerful eyes
would use their force
to strip their subjects naked and « dissect » them, so to speak.
(Other photographers do that,
and I am far from denouncing them for that.
I just state
that they achieve the opposite effect to what Peter does.)

Let me bring in another idea :
There is a beautiful film by François Truffaut
Called The Man Who Loved Women.
You learn in this film
that there is a rare tribe of men
-and I have nothing but the highest esteen for them-
who have an altogether different attitude toward women
than the rest of us.

They’re strong, but defenseless,
they’re tender, but without trying to impress with that,
they’re honest, as they have no other choice,
they’re loving, but in no way possessive.
Somehow, at least that’s my memory from Truffaut’s film,
They’re almost a tribe of monks.
But then again,
Women are not their religion.
Here’s what sums them up the best :
They are neither intimidated
Nor intimidating.

Mind you : In photography,
That’s not an obvious feat at all.
Most of the time, the subjects of photography are intimidated
(even if they are supermodels),
and photographers are excitable, or impressed, too,
even if they’re supermen.

And second :
the lack of mutual intimidation
is a rare thing among men and women, period.

By chance, one member of the tribe
is a photographer.
Peter Lindbergh.
(If only now somebody could explain his nickname to me :
« the Sultan. »
That might forever remain a mystery…)

So via these detours
I’ve found at least some traces of an answer to my initial question
Of how he does it :
With an almost unimaginable amount of « unimpressedness »
(you might almost call it stoicism)
and that one quality
that I praise more than anything else,
even if it has fallen out of fashion :
GENTLENESS.

Ladies and Gentleman :
Here’s a truly gentle man.

So the answer to my question is quite simply
That after all, the soul of a photographer
DOES show in all his pictures.

That’s how he does it.
By letting IT do it.

WIM WENDERS

BACK TO PUBLICATIONS