Tim Walker Exhibition:
Tim Walker is one of the most visually exciting and influential fashion photographers working
today. Extravagant in scale and ambition and instantly recognisable for their eye-opening
originality, Walker’s photographs dazzle with life, colour and humour. His recent work is
drawn from the pages of the world’s leading magazines: British, French, American and
Italian Vogue, Vanity Fair, W and The New Yorker among many others.
Walker’s photographs provide the focus of the exhibition, but the camera, he claims, ‘is
simply a box put between you and what you want to capture’. Everything in Walker’s pictures
is specially constructed and in a glimpse behind the mechanics, there are installations and a
selection of the extraordinary props and models on show: giant grotesque dolls for Italian
Vogue and an almost life-size replica of a doomed Spitfire fighter plane.
The photo shoot begins to resemble the film set: hair and make-up artists, fashion stylists
and costume fitters, model makers, set designers, builders, producers and painters, prop
suppliers and a cast of models playing out imagined roles. At the centre is Walker
harnessing creative and technical talents to conjure up the harmonious whole in a singular
picture.
The exhibition is accompanied by a series of events that feature many of Tim Walker’s longtime collaborators and uncover the influences and stories behind his work. There will be
workshops for all ages offering visitors the opportunity to work with some of the set
designers and prop builders who have worked with Tim Walker throughout his career and
talks will include Tim Walker in Conversation with Penny Martin. Throughout the exhibition
there will also be the opportunity to see a series of films specially curated by Tim Walker.
Made up of films that have inspired and influenced many of his images, they will include cult
movies such as La Belle at la Bete, The Red Shoes, A Matter of Life and Death and Tim’s
own first feature The Lost Explorer.
To coincide with the exhibition, Thames & Hudson will publish Story Teller by Tim Walker
featuring over 175 inspirational images, collages and snapshots from Walker’s personal
archives.
Review:
What better way to spend a secret day off from the kids than at the fashion
photographer Tim Walker’s Story Teller exhibition in Somerset House? It’s grey and
dreary outside, but stepping into the East Gallery, currently bursting with colour,
beauty and verve, seems to make the world right again.
Or, at the very least, it sparks the imagination. What would it be like to be the model
Kristen Mcmenamy, battling with a giant white spider and cavorting with the a celloplaying bee? Or Malgosia Bela, strapped into Gianfranco Ferre, cowing in a
doorway? Or even pursued in a dark forest by a giant Dolly, complete with Shirley
Temple curls, like Lindsey Wixson?
Tim Walker’s photographs have appeared in Vogue, month by month, for over a
decade, extravagant staging and romantic motifs characterising his style. Echoing
surrealist artists Magritte and Dali, signature props include a series of burnt-out
bowler hats and wind-up pipes, used in photographs of the Monty Python gang;
oversized tea cups, giant newspapers and supersize insects, while his doll masks
lend more than a passing nod to 1920s theatre designer Oliver Messel. Messel
himself is often described as a ‘theatrical illusionist’, a description just as easily
applied to Walker.
Walker is our modern day Cecil Beaton, mirroring Beaton’s opulence and
decadence, capturing and creating society women against backdrops of stately halls.
And boy does he love a grand hall – Glemham Hall in Suffolk, Eglingham Hall and
Howick Hall in Northumberland, locations he returns to again and again. I read
somewhere that he generally plans to shoot outside, but inevitably the rain comes
and his giant props are squeezed through doorways and into ballrooms to become
the incongruous sets that we expect.
Of course he has an enormous team and credits them for the magnificence of his
images: hair and make up artists, stylists, costume fitters, model and prop makers,
prop suppliers, painters, set producers, builders and models. And Walker seems to
have an affinity with the anti-supermodels of the 1990’s grunge era: aristocratic
Stella Tennant, Guinevere van Seenus, Kristen Mcmenamy, Karen Elson, Erin
O’Connor, Kate Moss; and he’s partial to a bleached eyebrow giving models an
androgynous otherworldly look.
Ultimately, it’s about a childlike quality of innocence and a simplicity that we as
adults no longer seem to see. ‘What I am photographing is an imaginary place that
never existed but is often connected to something that has already been,’ he says.
His portraits are classical: black and white with an often vivid coloured flower, a flash
of make-up or a rich fabric adding vibrant colour.
I worked in the industry for a decade and this to me is what fashion is all about:
dreams and magic, passion, fantasy, exaggeration, the merging of natural elements
with elevated sumptuous costumes. Creating wishes, photographing dreams, story
telling. I mean who doesn’t want to hang out in a field in Essex with Tim Burton
dressed as Santa Claus?
Words and Pics: Nikki Verdon