Femme fatale Olga Rodionova is a well-known beauty who moves in Moscow’s fashion and jet set circles.When her husband, a powerful Russian oligarch, sought to have special portraits made of his wife, he asked Bettina Rheims – an unusual request for a photographer of Rheims’s stature. Rheims was captivated by Olga’s unique aura and felt excited by the challenge of finding aesthetic ways of doing the portraits so that they didn’t feel like run of the mill pornography. The first shoot took place in Rheims’s country home and Olga’s husband was so pleased with the images that he suggested they produce a book with Olga as the private model. A second shoot followed, in black and white with a sado-masochistic décor and other men and women playing slightly perverse sex games with Olga. A third, Marie-Antoinette inspired shoot took place entirely in the studio. Rheims succeeded in finding a variety of ways to depict the artificial way of presenting human beings in ads and media nowadays and subjects like decadence, pleasure and living lifes as sexual libertins with a continuous freshness and intrigue . The way Bettina Rheims considers the modern depiction of the human body is sometimes exaggerating, provocative and satirical . Inspired by her passion for art and female portraiture, Bettina Rheims devoted herself wholly to photography beginning in 1978. In the past three decades she has produced many major series of works for books and exhibitions. In 2007 she was awarded the Légion d’Honneur for her artistic achievement. The contributing author Catherine Millet is editor-in-chief and co-founder of Art Press. She is also a curator and the author of many books, including La vie sexuelle de Catherine M. (2001).
to get it next week.
