At 80 years old, the French fashion photographer Sarah Moon is widely considered a living legend. A fashion model in the 1960s, Moon went on to work as a fashion photographer and filmmaker and became renowned for her textural and painterly visual style that imparts her images with an otherworldly atmosphere and intensity. Her work is the subject of ‘Sarah Moon: At the still point’, a comprehensive exhibition at Fotografiska in New York.
Comprising photographs as well as films and books produced over the last 30 years, the exhibition showcases both Moon’s literary approach to working and her ability create dreamlike visuals, regardless of their destination and medium.
Fashion 01, Issey Miyake, 1995
‘Sarah Moon creates her own timeless, unique visual language,’ says Amanda Hajjar, director of exhibitions at Fotografiska New York.
‘She expands outside straight fashion photography to something more conceptual, but we're still able to recognize it as fashion focused. This unexpectedness keeps us interested and surprised.’
18 juillet, 1989. The Red Thread
The deep colour tones, abstract shapes and melancholic mood of Moon’s images produce a rich storybook-like quality in her work. The exhibition at Fotografiska New York includes an installation of 46 photographs and six fictional obituaries based around her 2006 film The Red Thread, which draws on the French folk tale Bluebeard (a version of which, by Charles Perrault, was published in 1697).
‘The Red Thread, specifically, is very special to Sarah,' says Hajjar. ‘The actual installation of this work revisits the French fairytale of Bluebeard, which tells the story of a woman who is manipulated into a marriage with a murderous husband. Moon creates a visual narrative inclusive of gravestones of the previously murdered wives of Bluebeard.’
Julie Stouvenel, 1989. The Red Thread
Seeing these macabre narrative works alongside Moon’s fashion images facilitates a unique dialogue between the two worlds, blurring the lines between fiction and reality, as well as time and space.
‘Even the most glamorous fashion works of her oeuvre express a darkness, treading a line of fantasy and nightmare,’ Hajjar explains. ‘The painterly quality to the photographs is a device to highlight this ethereal mystery of the work. This draws viewers into Moon’s world and you’re visually captivated by the images in front of you.’
La Ralentie, 2011
On l’appelait Val, 1999
C’est A Hambourg II, 2015
La Funambule, 2003
L’Amaryllis, 2012
Ombres portées, 1992
La Neva, 2002
INFORMATION
‘Sarah Moon: At the still point’, 14 October 2021 – 6 Feb 2022, Fotografiska New York
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