Approaching Olga: the women behind and in front of the camera
By Catherine Millet. From 'Bettina Rheims, The Book of Olga'
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This woman who poses in a red waspie, who bestrides a young man on all fours and tears her fishnet tights to reveal a jewel attached to one of her labia, is well endowed with common sense
For many years now, Bettina Rheims has been working in an enigmatic region of eroticism. She likes to twist the eternal stereotypes, which of course means male stereotypes: here, the pin-up covered in diamonds—complete with cigar!—, there the marquise with her appetites and perversity, or the body as object chained and bound. This has brought its share of criticism from feminists, and yet (as I myself can confirm), and perhaps because of her displaced treatment of those stereotypes, sometimes her works move women more than they do men. How did she manage, then, in this particular situation, when her work subverting the clichés of desire put her in the position of go-between, in the middle of a man's and a woman's desire, of the kind of interplay whose protagonists are, as we know, very possibly not fully aware of their ultimate goals? Does one always measure the extent of one's expectations? Does one really know what one is after when one expresses one's desire, however freely one does so? These were the kind of questions faced by the artist.
Regarding the accessories that she put in her model's hands, Bettina admits straight out that "at first I would have preferred her to really use them". However, she quickly understood that she would have to work with the model's own distance, and so she began dressing Olga like a cabaret dancer and getting her to play with apples, on the lawn, like a little girl, and put a young man at her feet, and another in her arms, and at the same time captured the fixed look she gave her, and thrust her against a wall in a posture of abandoning herself to pleasure, getting from her the most luminous expression in the whole book. Such is the ambiguity of Bettina Rheims's action in exposing the women she photographs—exposing them to the risks of these games of seduction and to our gaze, while affirming that "I was protecting her". In fact, this ambiguity is typical of this artist, who has photographed respectable young women in states of undress like those of prostitutes, or icons of beauty with their bodies covered with sweat or bruises, or symbols of life that turn out to be stuffed animals, or again, the mutant bodies of those who have chosen to change sex. She has understood that this is what she does: show equivocal moments, but show them raw.
Page [1] [2] [3]
Page [1] [2] [3]
This woman who poses in a red waspie, who bestrides a young man on all fours and tears her fishnet tights to reveal a jewel attached to one of her labia, is well endowed with common sense
For many years now, Bettina Rheims has been working in an enigmatic region of eroticism. She likes to twist the eternal stereotypes, which of course means male stereotypes: here, the pin-up covered in diamonds—complete with cigar!—, there the marquise with her appetites and perversity, or the body as object chained and bound. This has brought its share of criticism from feminists, and yet (as I myself can confirm), and perhaps because of her displaced treatment of those stereotypes, sometimes her works move women more than they do men. How did she manage, then, in this particular situation, when her work subverting the clichés of desire put her in the position of go-between, in the middle of a man's and a woman's desire, of the kind of interplay whose protagonists are, as we know, very possibly not fully aware of their ultimate goals? Does one always measure the extent of one's expectations? Does one really know what one is after when one expresses one's desire, however freely one does so? These were the kind of questions faced by the artist.
Regarding the accessories that she put in her model's hands, Bettina admits straight out that "at first I would have preferred her to really use them". However, she quickly understood that she would have to work with the model's own distance, and so she began dressing Olga like a cabaret dancer and getting her to play with apples, on the lawn, like a little girl, and put a young man at her feet, and another in her arms, and at the same time captured the fixed look she gave her, and thrust her against a wall in a posture of abandoning herself to pleasure, getting from her the most luminous expression in the whole book. Such is the ambiguity of Bettina Rheims's action in exposing the women she photographs—exposing them to the risks of these games of seduction and to our gaze, while affirming that "I was protecting her". In fact, this ambiguity is typical of this artist, who has photographed respectable young women in states of undress like those of prostitutes, or icons of beauty with their bodies covered with sweat or bruises, or symbols of life that turn out to be stuffed animals, or again, the mutant bodies of those who have chosen to change sex. She has understood that this is what she does: show equivocal moments, but show them raw.
Page [1] [2] [3]
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Bettina Rheims, The Book of Olga
Hardcover + Box, 29.2 x 43.7 cm (11.5 x 17.2 in.), 154 pages
$ 850.00
$ 850.00
French photographer Bettina Rheims's bold, explicit portraits of a Russian femme fatale, commissioned by her millionaire oligarch husband. Limited to 1,000 numbered copies, each signed by Bettina Rheims.
Photo: Bettina Rheims