The photographer’s exhibition opened at the Store X just before lockdown. Now, the powerful exhibition is available to view from home
Last month, the prolific fashion photographer Willy Vanderperre opened a new exhibition at London’s The Store X, titled hurt burn ruin & more. Devoid of the fashion photography that he is best known for – Vanderperre works closely with Raf Simons and Miuccia Prada, along with publications including AnOther Magazine and Another Man – the exhibition featured a visceral series of images of flowers, in various stages of life and decay.
“What a fashion photographer does at the end of the day is [present] people with beauty, that’s at the core of our work,” he told us at the time. “I came to the conclusion that the only thing that, globally speaking, is considered to be beautiful is a flower. We are always seduced by flowers, they are a form of affection, they are a form of seduction. There is a sort of eroticism about them.”
Sadly, the exhibition – like countless others around the world – was closed due to the outbreak of Covid-19. Today, though, Vanderperre and The Store X have moved the exhibition online, allowing viewers to immerse themselves in the new works from home. And, for those wishing a physical memento, you can continue to purchase his ‘collectibles’ – postcards, buttons, patches, T-shirts and the like – though items will not be shipped until June 1, 2020.
“hurt, burn, ruin and more, represents our collective human fragility, the inevitability of our own plastic-wrapped self-destruction as a species,” wrote Dazed Media CEO and co-founder Jefferson Hack in his introduction to the exhibition. “But it’s not defeatist, there is within it a vital spark, an energy and intensity that wishes to transcend the hyper-normality of conventional aesthetics that hold and frame us in the mirror of our failure.”
Willy Vanderperre, hurt burn ruin & more at The Store X is now available to view online.