{"id":463580,"date":"2026-05-28T01:31:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T01:31:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/463580\/"},"modified":"2026-05-28T01:31:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T01:31:18","slug":"can-love-be-a-photograph-for-inez-and-vinoodh-the-answer-is-yes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/463580\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Love Be a Photograph? For Inez and Vinoodh, the Answer is Yes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Estimated5 min read<\/p>\n

You can immediately tell an Inez & Vinoodh photograph the minute you see it: the model Christy Turlington perched on a tree branch, her head cocked at a slight angle, her head creating an illustrated shadow (or is it a hole?) from where something is oozing. The model Colette Pechekhonova lying on a bed in a black pinafore and white tee, her hair perfectly sprayed over the pillow; though she is in repose, she commands the same power as a military portrait. (And are we seeing her from above or from below?) Bj\u00f6rk on the cover of Vespertine<\/a>, wearing the iconic Marjan Pejoski swan gown, asleep or in the throes of passion, her arm bent over her face, mirroring the shape of the swan\u2019s neck around her own, an illustration of a swan overlaid on top.<\/p>\n

What all these photographs have in common is a sense of fantasy that is nonetheless grounded in reality, a feeling that sometimes borders on the uncanny. They are also always beautiful\u2014often in unfamiliar ways that will draw you in closer to show you something new about the world or about yourself.<\/p>\n

\"Christy<\/p>\n

Christy Turlington, photographed for a 2001 Balenciaga campaign created with the graphic design studio M\/M Paris, who are frequent collaborators with the photographers<\/p>\n

Photo: Courtesy of Inez & Vinoodh\"abstract<\/p>\n

ME #10, 1998<\/p>\n

Colette Pechekhnova, photographed in repose<\/p>\n

Photo: Courtesy of Inez & Vinoodh<\/p>\n

A show currently on view at the Kunstmuseum Den Haag<\/a> in the Netherlands gathers a lifetime of photographs by Inez Van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin under the name \u201cCan Love Be a Photograph,\u201d a fitting title for the work of the Dutch duo, who are partners in work and love. It is, in many ways, an immersive experience into the world they have created throughout the past four decades.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe love people, we love looking at people, and we love talking to them and learning from them and also heightening them to this ultimate version of themselves\u2014or to something that we project onto them\u2014which is obviously what happens in a fashion picture, where you have a character in mind and you ask the model to embody it,\u201d Inez explains on a video call from the couple\u2019s home. \u201cWe\u2019re always moved by the fact that someone opens up to us that way, even when it\u2019s 15 minutes with a celebrity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Kate<\/p>\n

Kate Moss, photographed for Harper\u2019s Bazaar, 1999<\/p>\n

Photo: Courtesy of Inez & Vinoodh\"Modern<\/p>\n

Charlotte Gainsbourg, photographed for Harper\u2019s Bazaar, 2000<\/p>\n

Photo: Courtesy of Inez & Vinoodh\"TaylorPhoto: Courtesy of Inez & Vinoodh<\/p>\n

Taylor Swift and Benjamin, photographed for Time magazine, 2023<\/p>\n

Their portraits convey a new kind of intimacy. Suddenly, you are seeing people you have seen a million times before\u2014Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Taylor Swift\u2014in a completely different way: softer or bolder or at peace, like they are aware of the viewer\u2019s own gaze and they welcome it. This is likely an effect of the duo\u2019s process: They take pictures simultaneously, a practice they stumbled upon early in their careers, during a Harper\u2019s Bazaar shoot photographing the French actress and musician Charlotte Gainsbourg. \u201cWe had an extra camera on a shoot that we were going to try out, and I didn\u2019t feel like going through it and testing something new, and Vinoodh [decided to test it],\u201d she recalls. \u201cThe pictures were incredible; it was like now we have two opportunities, two sets of eyes, two brains, two pictures of the exact same thing, the exact same moment, and that opened up many possibilities and a sense of freedom and less stress, because we know one of us will always have [the shot].\u201d In 2013, they photographed Prince for V Magazine\u2014one of the last portraits of the artist. They captured him simultaneously regal and saint-like, but his softened gaze revealed something beyond romantic.<\/p>\n

Beyond conveying the disarming energy that being in Inez and Vinoodh\u2019s presence as they dance behind the camera can have, their work stands out because of their way of manipulating images\u2014a digital version of analog collage techniques that they began experimenting with back in 1991, in the days before Photoshop. (\u201cIt was done on Quantel Paintbox,\u201d recalls Vinoodh.) \u201cWe were commissioned to make this calendar for a city in Holland, and we went there and photographed all the sites where we were planning to come back with models,\u201d Inez explains. \u201cOf course, the day we went back\u2014as is typical in Holland\u2014it rained, it was gray, it was miserable, nothing worked. So then I remembered the computer. We decided to shoot the girls in the studio, mimicking the light of the locations as we had photographed them when it was sunny.\u201d They combined the images on the computer, and the rest, as they say, is history. \u201cWe were excited immediately by the weird, hyperrealist strangeness of it\u2014the effect that it had with this super sharp background and the super sharp foreground, which you never could have in a photograph.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although digitally manipulating images has since become standard practice in the world of photography\u2014and beyond\u2014their intent has always been different. \u201cWhen we started in the \u201990s, a photograph was still seen as the truth,\u201d Inez adds. \u201cFrom day one, once we encountered the possibility of the computer, we said, \u2018No, already by lifting your camera and framing [the photo], you\u2019re already manipulating the truth.\u2019 We were taking one, two, three, four, five, six steps further to try to bend reality to what we want to see, disrupt or destroy the parts that interest us, and make it all look by hand.\u201d Vinoodh adds, \u201cWhen you know it\u2019s AI, it\u2019s a joke, and we\u2019re not really into the joke. Our whole thing was that in our image, you never know what\u2019s the real and what\u2019s the unreal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"furPhoto: Courtesy of Inez & Vinoodh<\/p>\n

An early photo blurring the line between fantasy and reality, 1994<\/p>\n

\"RoosPhoto: Courtesy of Inez & Vinoodh<\/p>\n

Another early photo that blurs the line between fantasy and reality, 1999<\/p>\n

\"Bjork<\/p>\n

A test Polaroid for Bj\u00f6rk\u2019s Vespertine, 2001<\/p>\n

Photo: Courtesy of Inez & Vinoodh\"Kate<\/p>\n

Kate Moss test Polaroid, 1999<\/p>\n

Photo: Courtesy of Inez & Vinoodh<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people ask us about AI, but for us it\u2019s the process that counts,\u201d Inez continues. \u201cIt\u2019s about being on set with the person we\u2019re shooting, with the teams, with the styling or the writer or whatever is happening that day. It\u2019s that exchange and that energy that\u2019s the most important for us. Maybe there are people that are really happy just typing prompts into a computer. It\u2019s just not our process. It\u2019s not our life.\u201d<\/p>\n

But even in the world of AI and manipulated images, there is still one type of photograph that has come to symbolize a kind of truth: the Polaroid. The exhibition also shows 200 of their test Polaroids, or quick images that photographers usually take before they begin shooting in earnest in order to establish that everything looks the way they mean it to look.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is one of people\u2019s favorite rooms in the exhibition because now they know what they are seeing is real,\u201d relates Vinoodh. \u201cThere is this hunger for what is real in humans.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"abstract<\/p>\n

ME #02, 1998<\/p>\n

Photo: Courtesy of Inez & Vinoodh\"abstract<\/p>\n

ME #04, 1998<\/p>\n

Photo: Courtesy of Inez & Vinoodh\"SchreursPhoto: Courtesy of Inez & Vinoodh<\/p>\n

A look inside \u201cCan Love Be a Photograph\u201d at the Kunstmuseum Den Haag<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"5 min read You can immediately tell an Inez & Vinoodh photograph the minute you see it: the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":463581,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[437,434,435,436,146561,2139,215765,438,637,146,85,46,195853,1975,162173,215764,146560],"class_list":["post-463580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-books-music","tag-content-type-feature","tag-contentid-a75ce306-9648-4039-8c14-b2982ae948ce","tag-design","tag-displaytype-standard-article","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-issyndicated-false","tag-locale-us","tag-read_time-6","tag-shorttitle-can-love-be-a-photograph-inez-and-vinoodh-say-yes","tag-subsection-art"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=463580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463580\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/463581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}