Alison M.Gingeras is a writer and Adjunct Curator at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, she divides her time between Paris, New York and Warsaw. From 1999 to 2004 she held the post of Curator for Contemporary Art at the Centre Pompidou, Paris, and was previously a member of the curatorial staff at the Guggenheim Museum, New York from 1995 to 1999. She is a frequent contributor to Artforum and is a member of the editorial board of Tate.Etc. magazine.
Guy Bourdin (1928-1991) created some of the most challenging and seductive fashion photographs of the last century. He worked for vogue Paris for over thirty years, from 1955 to 1987, and his images filled the pages of international fashion magazines throughout the 1970s and 1980s in groundbreaking campaigns for Charles Jourdan, Bloomingdales and Dior. His glamorous, yet often surreal, work revolutionized the genre of fashion photography, presenting fashion as the luxurious embellishment rather than the subject of his images, which depict dark fantasies of lust, consumption and desire. Bourdin's legacy can still be seen in the work of photographers such as Stephen Meisel and Helmut Newton. This accessible monograph is the perfect introduction to his work.