Mar 29, 2008

Spencer Tunick: No Dress Code

Spencer Tunick, Four Seasons Restaurant, New York

Spencer Tunick and a crowd of volunteer naked people brazenly defied the dress code at the Four Seasons restaurant for Tunick’s 75th installation documenting the human form in unexpected places. Other New York locations where Tunick's models have gone au naturale include Grand Central Station and Times Square.

Tunick’s Saturday shoot coincided with the day the Pool Room at the Four Seasons changes its seasonal décor to a Spring theme. This 20X24 photograph was taken with a large scale Polaroid and will be sold at an auction to benefit Free Arts NYC, which for ten years has been bringing art and creative activities to under-served children and families in New York City.

posted by Photography Collection at 6:48 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

Christie's Auction: The Collection of Gert Elfering

Irving Penn, Kate Moss, New York, 1996, platin-palladium print

The nude photograph of Carla Bruni by Michel Comte is part of 135 photos of the Collection of Gert Elfering which are going to be sold at Christie's, New York, on 10 April. Among them are some important nude photographs by Irving Penn, Helmut Newton, Man Ray, Herb Ritts, Jeanloup Sieff and other renowned artists. While the estimate of the photograph by Michel Comte is $3000 - 4000 other pictures are much more valuable. The estimate of the platin-palladium print of Kate Moss by Irvin Penn is $30.000 - 40.000. Most of the photographs which are offered at the auction are black and white.

Irving Penn, Gisèle Bundchen, New York, 1999, gelatin silver print


Michel Comte, Untitled (Nudes), 1999, gelatin silver print

posted by Photography Collection at 6:15 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

Michel Comte and his muse

Carla Bruni by Michel Comte, 1993, gelatin silver print, 13 x 10 1/8 in.

Swiss photographer Michel Comte, author of the image of Carla Bruni in the nude says he has more explicit pictures but that he will not sell them. In an interview published in Le Matin, Comte, who now resides in New York, says that he does not know how the picture got to Christie’s where it will be auctioned on April 10, "I must have made a gift to someone. I make very few copies, three to five at the most, he points out. In fact, the photographer assures that he got word of the auction when a reporter from Le Matin called him on the phone. He remembers that he took the picture at the end of a photo shoot for Vogue in Paris or New York.

I worked with Carla for approximately 10 years. We have shot thousands of pictures together, fashion photos, pictures in her house in Italy. We were close friends and spent a lot of our time aboard the Concorde”, he remembers. In his opinion, the black and white photo which is expected to fetch at least $3,000 US DLS.”It’s her, it’s Carla, with her fantasy.

Comte says that Nicolas Sarkozy’s wife is “naked in this picture but at the same time shows her masculine side. And even goes on to say that it could even be a man. “It seems as if she is touching or hiding her sex: she plays. She looks afraid, with her feet pointing inside and her face has the expression of a mask, as if it was torn from her body, he continued.

According to an online bio, Bruni signed with City Models at age nineteen. In the 1990's she was pulling in about seven million dollars a year modeling and she dated a list of famous men including Eric Clapton, Mick Jagger and Donald Trump.

posted by Photography Collection at 5:56 AM 0 Comments Links to this post