Terry Richardson - Wet dreams come true

I first saw Terry Richardson's work in the mid-nineties. I asked a shopping assistant in a Sisley store in a small Slovene town Celje whether I can take the catalogue. "Yes, but these catalogues are only for customers that actually buy our clothes." I took it anyway, although she did not look really pleased. Maybe she thought I was a bit too young to be allowed to look at all the raunchy pics inside. An impression these photos certainly made on me, and I began snatching the catalogues whenever I saw that Sisley had a new collection out. That was not hard to spot because along with the new clothes they usually put all the nasty Richardson photos in the shopping windows.

Richardson (1965) is seen as the photographer that brought sex and filth into fashion. There is a silly text over his work on his website, which I perceive as a total joke: "Known for his uncanny ability to cut to the raw essence of whomever appears before his lens, Mr. Richardson's vision is at once humorous, tragic, often beautiful, and always provocative." Yes, well done. A-plus. But the text is right about the fact that there is not a big difference in how Richardson handles his models on a fashion shoot, a private shoot or celebrity portraits. This is what Richardson has in common with Helmut Newton, only that Newton combines sex with wit, and Richardson combines sex with... well, sex, and yes - there is even more sex. Some reviewers call it the porn aesthetic which Newton comparing to Richardson certainly does not posses.

Terry Richardson grew into a renowned photographer. That means that not only fashion models got to pose for him, but also celebrities. So, Richardson also did (among others) Justin Timberlake, Jake Gyllenhaal and Pharrell Williams. And again there are a lot of sexual connotations and filthy glamour in these portraits. He might not have gone really far and did not have sex with them (as he did with his other models), but the feel to it is the same. They are all sexual creatures, not being ashamed of their raunchy side to slip out for a while.

So, besides making the cover for Justin's last album FutureSex/LoveSounds, Terry Richardson made a portrait of him sitting on a bed in a hotel room, looking kind of disoriented, with a cowboy hat next to him. His expecting and innocent look, the hat (that might belong to somebody else), and the sheer raunchy feeling of a snapshot can be interpreted as an image from a life of a young male prostitute. Gyllenhaal also looks as a rent boy, his client taking a pic, so that he will have a reminder of that gorgeous young body. And Pharell - he is posing a bit for the shot, but he does not have a lot of time. There is a girl he has to attend to urgently.

It seems as if the stars and their managers wanted to get a new, raunchier look from a hip, new and raunchy photographer. As Richardson says in an interview for Guardian: "Hell, somebody's gotta come up once in a while and say bollocks to all that mainstream, glamour stuff." And what better way to finish off this comment than quoting his website again: "Whatever the medium, Terry Richardson continues to prove that he is a true American Original." Anerican? Original? Please, somebody explain to me what that means!

Links and Sources

www.terryrichardson.com
arts.guardian.co.uk/features/story/0,,1329207,00.html
www.taschen.com