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Maybe none of that. The misunderstood image-maker that created meaning in the combination of his subject and its framework.

Text: Iliana Deligiorgi

(Images: © Guy Bourdin)

His images carrying the energy of pictures in motion, lively to the extent of making you stop and stare at them for hours. An artist rather than just another fashion photographer; his extensive work published in Vogue and displayed in acclaimed fashion spaces, such as the V&A Museum in London, almost always criticised for its content. Rumours for his own sexual preferences, his dark and complicated feelings about women and his relationship with his mother still surround his photographs.

Grace Coddington words in ‘Dreamgirls: The photography of Guy Bourdin’ documentary, aired on BBC2 in 1996, shifts the interest back to Guy Bourdin’s photographic legacy and shuts down the rumours: “Did I think it was wrong that his pictures were some kind of macabre…but I see them with a different eye you know, I see them as photographs. Do they really know about his life and the reason of those pictures is because something terrible happened? No they don’t. I knew him for that moment. I didn’t really know what had gone before, obviously what was to come of the several tragedies in his life.”

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Discover or remember the photographs of Guy Bourdin in this 50-minutes 1996 TV programme about his work: